Hi Bart,
Some help please. Do you both turn off sharpening in C1 except for diffraction correction and place focus magic and Topaz Detail on same layer? In additoin, do you any default settings for Topaz Detail.
Hi Jed,
I usually keep C1's Diffraction Correction toggled on, because that unifies the look of images that were shot with different apertures. I then switch-off the separate Sharpening settings in the output recipe.
Then in Photoshop (or Affinity Photo) I use an action that creates a duplicate layer, switches it to Luminosity blend mode, and applies a Blend-if that avoids clipping due to sharpening, and starts FocusMagic. I then use the required settings (usually a blur width of 1, or sometimes 2) and an Amount of 100 to 175, depending on the image.
The Topaz Detail settings can be applied to the same Luminosity Blend layer if nothing color specific is required, or on a new Merge Visible layer for full control. The settings for Detail differ with image content and intended use (and viewing distance) of the image, but I often add a bit of small detail (and reduce small detail boost to suppress noise amplification), and some medium detail.
The benefit of applying Detail to the FocusMagic sharpened Layer is that it also already has Blend-if settings, so there is no risk for clipping even if small detail is enhanced, and it avoids file bloat from an additional image layer. The drawback is that it is no longer possible to separate the Capture sharpening from the 'Creative sharpening', so I may need to do it all over for a different use of the same image, instead of just (temporarily) switching off the Detail layer, and creating a new one.
Cheers,
Bart