Colin im finally going to learn how to sharpen images correctly!

[Mark von Kanel]

Im determined to start using the equipment and software that i own to good effect, as im at work on board a ship im going to concentrate on the software, because i cant get ashore to do the togging that i want to do.

Colin southern rightly rants that people bother about all sorts of side issues to PP such as gamut ext but they routinely dont profile their monitors, lens's (i need to do my lens's) or have a good sharpening process in their workflow.

Ok ill admit it, i NEVER sharpen anything other than what LR applies in its "sharpen for screen" mode on export Now im actually selling some work i need to up my game and as you can see in the tutorial on this site, sharpening can make a HUGE difference.

From what im reading the sharpening in camera RAW (thats what LR use's i think) so im going to learn to use both and compare the results. Im hoping you guys will help me learn how to do this to the best effect.

Im going to start with 2 images 1 OOC the other with a huge crop neither have been sharpened at all the ill sharpen in LR which is a simple process and then ill try it in PS which seems a lot more complicated to say the least.

The one thing that really worries me is that if the sharpening in PS unsharp mask does a much better job than the camera raw version, is that this will mean a major alteration to my work flow which up till now has been LR based almost entirely im hoping you guys will have a work around for it though

OOC



and the crop un shapened



Now ill go away and play with camera raw and load up the results.

[Mark von Kanel]

so these are out of camera raw in LR ive re posted OOC as well to make it easier to compare. i noticed something interesting in that the cropped version needed lees sharpening (in my opinion) that the un cropped. what doe you think?

OOC



sharpened to 134 amount 2.2 radius and 57 detail this was as comfortable as i got with the sharpening that i did on the crop



and this one was given the max on all sliders amount 150 radius 3 detail 100 but i think it looks better, opinions please.



Heres the unsharpened crop again



and here it is amount 134 radius 2.2 and detail 57, i dont think any more would help do you?

[HaseebM]

The last one indeed looks sharp. Also I find the "Clarity" slider works well in LR5.

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Haseeb,

at the moment im only looking at sharpening i often use clarity which i think is a contrast thing to give similar effects but i do belive that perserverance in learning how to sharpen properly will help my work, im not to sure about the amount of time its going to take though!

im tryin PS now and from what im reading i should be using a smaller radius on detailed images like these, i think its radius thats making the uncropped image need ing more shapening but im not sure, one thing that ive learned already is that ps's sharpening is a LOT more controllable... i think

[Geoff F]

Typical for me would be, starting with a Raw image.

ACR, Clarity around 30 (Vibrance around20). Then a 'capture sharpen' about 50 to 80 max with radius of 0.5. Sometimes use the Masking option about 10 to 20 setting if I go above 50 in the amount. And a little bit of Noise Reduction, say 10 to 20. Then Open in Main window.

After further editing, a final Unsharp Mask of between 80 and 200 amount. 0.8 to 2 radius and 1 to 3 threshold.

Where there is fine detail, like hairy insects, I usually limit the radius to 1.

But quite often I do selective sharpening, particularly with macro shots. Draw a selection around the area to be sharpened and feather. This helps to prevent noisy backgrounds. Alternatively create a duplicate layer, from the background image, sharpen that then add a mask and edit so only the required areas appear to be sharpened.

I use a similar process for selective noise reduction.

When downsizing for internet use I sometimes use a final sharpen around 0.5 amount and 0.5 radius with Threshold 0 or 1.

I have tried using the Bicubic Sharpener method of resizing downwards but have never liked the results which are often too harsh for me. Any of the other auto resizing and sharpening for internet use don't work for me. Just resize normally then do a normal Unsharp Mask tweak.

There are a number of more complicated sharpening methods, like High Pass etc, but so far I have never found any real advantage with them, and it does take a bit of extra time.

And then, of course, there are things like Local Contrast Enhancement which can be done with Unsharp Mask to give the image a final boost. Some people use this all the time but it can easily get overdone.

[Polar01]

Mark: I have looked at you thread about sharpening. Now their are 4 sharpening that are done to an image.
(01) This is done by you when you focus the camera on the subject, miss it here and nothing will help
(02) This is pre production sharpening after you bring it into your raw converter before you work on the image
(03) Selective sharpening is done only to those areas you want sharpened. In LR or ACR this is done with the selection brush or
in Photoshop using layers and masks.
(04) Output sharpening is done here and the amount and type of sharpening is depend on how the image is going to be viewed
ie: web, TV or monitor, printed, if printed also the size of the print and type of stock printed on.

I think that is may help it you tell what kind of sharpening you are doing as "overall" or "selective", watch the amount applied, for when you output you usually sharpen the image the hold image again which may be too much in the end. For me a little is better than too much, I believe that good sharpening is a skill that takes time to learn.

Cheers: Allan

[Mark von Kanel]

Thanks Geoff/Allen,

Id forgotton about the 3 stages!! DOH its a good job i picked such a busy image i dont think selective sharpening is really relevant here is it? or is it? so im doing global sharpening, i suppose.... would this bee (sorry pun intended) appropriate for this image?

im just trying to get to grips with unsharp mask in PS to apply and compare the 2 methods. Thinking about it i think theres a way in LR to see which areas are being sharpened... i need to have a look that might help me decide if its to much / to little.

[Polar01]

If you look in LR or ACR with the adjustment brush, look lower down on the right hand panel and you will see I believe auto mask (Click to make live) then farther down mask click it and everything you paint over will show. Now if using auto mask, if you keep the inner circle not the feather circle within the object you should only mask that and no over spray. If done this way you should be able to add some sharpening and/or clarity to the masked area.
Each image is different with the bees there is a lot going on, however if you had someone with say a horse you would want the eyes to be as clear and sharp as can be, but you do not need the skin to be as sharp which is what you would get if applied to the whole image. Sharpening is used a lot of the time to help draw the viewer's eye to what you think is important.

Cheers: Allan

[Mark von Kanel]

Thanks Allen i think i picked the wrong image to start on in some ways, and in others i havnt! ive been able to practice with sliders in both PS and LR and see what they do, as a consequence i now know how to resize in PS and save in different formats ive played with the smart sharp thingy and im learning PS which is ultimately my goal.

Ive also learnt that the unsharpmask is far more flexible that the raw sharpener, but ive really got to think about workflow, i like shooting events, festivals that sort of thing and individually sharpening 100's of images turns me cold! so i guess if im turning out a slide show portraying an event start to finish then global sharpening is all thats practical really and the local stuff will have to be for print only. is this a correct workflow im wondering?

so at the moment i need to choose some input sharpening (im sure colin has mentioned some average settings somewhere on her so ill use those) and some output settings for screen and print (i think colins mentioned those as well) those are the easy bits so now its just the local stuff i need to learn and for that a different pic!!

[Polar01]

You might want to think about making some pre-sets in LR or ACR. I have one for each camera profile, vivid, landscape, portrait, etc., I make custom pre-sets, I click on the one I want it applies it say Adobe Landscape + other items I have added to the custom one Lens Correction, Remove Chromatic Aberration, in Detail Sharpening Amount 65, Radius 1.0, Detail 5, Masking 0, Noise Reduction Luminance 28, Luminance Detail 50, Contrast 25, Colour 38, Colour Detail 50 and Colour smoothness 50, and finally Vibrance +23.
You can batch load say 50 raw images, go select all> hit the pre-set> done. you can come back later to fine tune each image, but you have a large amount done with the pre-set, Sharpening, Noise Reduction, Lens correction, Remove Chromatic aberration.
Those values I use for all my pre-sets vibrance will be different with some of the other camera profiles.

Cheers: Allan

[Mark von Kanel]

Thanks Allan ill keep that in mind i am aware of presets and batch processing but most of my large workflows are actually black and white, i could automate the conversion but i like to tweak each one so as its a one button conversion followed by tweaking i dont generally bother, ive done some environmental portraiture reacently and have some clients booked in when i get home so ill be doing batch WB and colour profiling, it will be more use then.

[Mark von Kanel]

anyway on with the sharpening learning curve! ive chosen this image to try selective sharpening, its from an environmental portrait shoot ( i still need to write a thread about it with which to bore you with)

Now thers plenty of selective sharpening to do on here! so where do i start?

i need to do hair and eyes i know that what else?

do i need to do these on separate layers?

Import sharpened to 25 amount 1.o radius detail 25 no export sharpening

[ajohnw]

I think you should try Geoff's capture sharpening Mark in ACR. Also called sharpening in. The numbers Geoff quote look similar to the ones I use in another package. The setting he mentions is probably a MUCH higher rad than the one you have used and has a different effect. That's why it's there for use on full sized images. Too much increases noise if it's there and also has a strange effect on contrast.

John
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[Mark von Kanel]

Thanks John,

Geoff what number do you use for detail on import sharpening?

[Polar01]

Mark remember the raw or pre-sharpening is only to correct what the camera did because of the AA and Low pass filters, it is very slight and you may not notice it. Why not try the numbers I gave you 65, 1, 5, and 0, these were given to me by a landscape and wildlife photographer in the southwest US. they are his standard go to values and it like to keep things simple.

Cheers: Allan

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Allan,

Yup got that i undestand that captur sharpening is just a starting point, im reading about a guy called Bruce Fraser, apparently he came up with the 3 stage sharpening process and called it sharpening workflow, from what im reading though even capture sharpening depends on the frequency of the image.

The way to select your frequency is to imagine a line across the picture and if you get lots of alternating strong /dark lights then its high frq (like the bees) and if there are few changes like a portrait then its low freq

So a low freq pic (portrait) will need a Larger radius and a high freq will need a smaller radius (bees n trees)

Ive read that another way of sorting out captur sharpening is to use the mask button in camera raw (think you mentioned it) just hold down alt key while playing with the sliders and itll show you what your sharpening so im going to play with that now.

[Mark von Kanel]

ok before work this morning i had a play with the sliders in camera raw and using the preview thing by holding own the cmd alt keys i found that my input/capture sharpening needs the values amount 60 radius 1.5 detail 44 and mask 21 for this photo (in my opinion)

I cant really see much difference in the pic but it is there if you check the detail view, I suppose over time for this sort of sharpening, which isnt really critical ill come up with a set of values that pretty much resemble Allan's, but its good to see how it all works!

so there you go input/capture sharpening set and below is the result (not that you can see any difference!)

so that moving on it time to try some creative or local sharpening as ive said above i know hair and eyes are needed what about anything else? do you sharpen different areas of the image to different amounts (im assuming so) if so whats the best way to do this in both LR and PS?

[Richard Lundberg]

Shouldn't you investigate Focus Magic and Topaz, among others, to make sure your image has all the focus it deserves, before getting all worked up about sharpening. Sharpening is just edge enhancement. LR transitions to deconvolution as you move the Detail slider to the right and deconvolution is what the various focus apps do. Most of them remove motion blur as well.

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for commenting, you may be correct but this image is focused correctly on the eyes of the subject and im happy with it. i do have topaz focus but i have never tried it and understood it to be used to correct images that are soft OOC ( i stand to be corrected of course )

So personally i think that if your getting your subject in focus, in camera then the need for these programs in everyday workflow is not required, maybe someone more knowledgeable could comment?

There are lots of things i need to learn, but i feel that sharpening is towards the top of the list for me.

I do need to calibrate my lens's because its good to be certain that it as good as it gets with the equipment that ive got. Ill be starting yet another thread on this shortly

[Colin Southern]

Shouldn't you investigate Focus Magic and Topaz, among others, to make sure your image has all the focus it deserves, before getting all worked up about sharpening. Sharpening is just edge enhancement. LR transitions to deconvolution as you move the Detail slider to the right and deconvolution is what the various focus apps do. Most of them remove motion blur as well.

Or, one can simply get the focus correct before taking the shot, instead of relying on software to compensate for poor technique.