Capture Sharpening

[Ollokot]

Hi folks,
I'm having a problem fully understanding when to apply capture sharpening in pp. I shoot in raw and open in elements 7 ACR do what ever processing I think the image needs ( let me add with very little experience ) and at the end sharpen.Should I apply some initial sharpening when I open the image,then continue or am I on the wrong track altogether. Oh yes I don't apply any in camera sharpening.
I will be most grateful to have this confusion lifted from my muddled up mind
Best Wishes Pat

[Donald]

Pat

Click on here and read the C in C guide.

Capture sharpening should be the first thing you do when you open it in elements. Everything else comes after that.

[arith]

It all depends. I never do it.

[Dave Humphries]

Capture sharpening should be the first thing you do when you open it in elements. Everything else comes after that.

I would agree, but also suggest that if the image is high iso/noisy, that you noise reduce first with a plugin like Neat Image (extra money I'm afraid, but worth it).

If you don't, you'll sharpen the noise and make it much more noticeable, unless you have a high threshold on USM, but if you do that, you'll end up with something that is sharp in some (high contrast) places and smudged in other (low contrast) places.

If an image is REALLY noisy, I too might skip capture sharpening.

Cheers,

[Donald]

Good points Dave.

Don't know if you've got to 'Masks' in your learning yet, Pat. If not, don't worry - that can come along at a later date. But a variation of what we've said above is that you do do the capture sharpen, but then put on a layer mask to hide the noisy bits so that they don't show up as sharpened. A mask is just what it says on the tin - something to put on top of the image to hide all (which would be a bit silly) or some of it.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Pat,

It would be nice to be able to do capture sharpening in ACR, but unfortunately ACR can't produce a low enough radius. So it's pretty much the first thing I do in Photoshop when I pass the image through from ACR - the only exception being if I have a few dust bunnies to deal to (especially in sky areas) ... doing it before capture sharpening can make them a little bit easier to deal with.

I should point out though that capture sharpening really only makes an image nicer to work on at high magnifications ... it it's too small to be seen in a small or medium print (that's where content/creative & output sharpening comes in).

[Ollokot]

Many thanks folks,
The muddle in my head has cleared, I now have a much better understanding,and once again have been enlightened by CiC,there's no better site for learning.

Pat

[Colin Southern]

I now have a much better understanding,and once again have been enlightened by CiC,there's no better site for learning.

So the rumour is true!