To sharpen or not to sharpen?

[Victor Meldrew]

This dilemma has always put me off submitting images to magazines, image libraries, competitions etc. as I'd never be sure how much sharpening (if any) to apply. The editor of Digital SLR Photography in the UK told me not to sharpen them at all but I'd be embarassed to submit the neutral images from my Canon 20 and 40D as they look crap unsharpened, and I could guarantee that one day someone would use them in this state. (In fact this has already happened to me when I provided some wildlife shots for one of my company's internal publications!)

I know the theory is to leave the sharpening until the the last step in the workflow when the output size is known, but is there an argument for some pre-sharpening of the RAW image?

Paul.

http://www.photosofwildlife.co.uk

[DarkPenguin]

You might want to read real world image sharpening for cs2 by the late Bruce Fraser.

I would certainly do capture and creative sharpening.   Leave print sharpening up to those who are doing the printing.

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html

[Marty C]

This dilemma has always put me off submitting images to magazines, image libraries, competitions etc. as I'd never be sure how much sharpening (if any) to apply. The editor of Digital SLR Photography in the UK told me not to sharpen them at all but I'd be embarassed to submit the neutral images from my Canon 20 and 40D as they look crap unsharpened, and I could guarantee that one day someone would use them in this state. (In fact this has already happened to me when I provided some wildlife shots for one of my company's internal publications!)

I know the theory is to leave the sharpening until the the last step in the workflow when the output size is known, but is there an argument for some pre-sharpening of the RAW image?

Paul.

http://www.photosofwildlife.co.uk
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You may want to try PhotoKit Sharpen from Pixel Genius. It is very intuitive and the results will astound you. Plus it is non destructive so you do not have to worry about
destroying your image.

 

[Schewe]

The editor of Digital SLR Photography in the UK told me not to sharpen them at all...
http://www.photosofwildlife.co.uk
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Well, I don't know him from Adam, but the odds are, he's a lot more clueless that you are (at least you suspect that un-sharpened images will suck).

What he and others are saying when they say don't sharpen, is don't over-sharpen or miss-sharpen cause that's real hard to fix. But the bottom line is that shooting digital without any sharpening isn't the solution either. What you really want to do is sharpen correctly–and until the final repro size is determined, there's simply no way to do final sharpening. Life sucks and then ya die. But people who get my work for repro, don't have permission to reproduce the work until the final image size is determined and then I'll send them final repro files to use. If they don't like that, tough "bat guano"...

If your work is important to you, it's YOUR responsibility to know this stuff enough to keep others from screwing up your work. Even if you can see out of one eye, it's better than the blind leading the blind!

[Mark D Segal]

..............but is there an argument for some pre-sharpening of the RAW image?

Paul.

http://www.photosofwildlife.co.uk
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Yes, one of the arguments for performing cvapture sharpening on the raw image is that all of our DSLRs have anti-aliasing filters which moderately reduce image accutance, and to have a decent looking image it is necessary to recover that accutance with capture sharpening. It is the first step in a sharpening workflow. Output sharpening builds on capture sharpening. The new Camera Raw 4.x has a very good set of tools for capture sharpening which is, in this case, done before the image is rendered into Photoshop. Having done that, you finish processing the image and then as the last step before printing you do the output sharpening, as Jeff says, based on the PPI of the final output. This is all explained in Bruce and Jeff's new book on Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3 - a highly recommended read.

[sniper]

I second Martys recomendation for photokit sharpner, I haven't used anything else since I got it.  Do read the instructions fully though, otherwise you'll be baffled (well I was anyway lol)  
I also doubt the SLR editor leaves his pics unsharpened either!.  Wayne

[bjanes]

But people who get my work for repro, don't have permission to reproduce the work until the final image size is determined and then I'll send them final repro files to use. If they don't like that, tough "bat guano"...
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Jeff's in your face approach may work for a well established photographer, but it may not work for a fledgling photographer who is seeking to get his work published. In the end, what is required is that some degree of trust and respect exist between the photographer and publisher. Once that is established, then they can work out who does what in the process.

Yes, one of the arguments for performing cvapture sharpening on the raw image is that all of our DSLRs have anti-aliasing filters which moderately reduce image accutance, and to have a decent looking image it is necessary to recover that accutance with capture sharpening. It is the first step in a sharpening workflow. Output sharpening builds on capture sharpening. The new Camera Raw 4.x has a very good set of tools for capture sharpening which is, in this case, done before the image is rendered into Photoshop.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=162628\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Mark's advice is very well reasoned, but putting it into practice with a given set of tools could prove problematic. In Bruce Fraser's sharpening work flow, sharpening for source (camera) and content (the nature of the subject) are combined in Capture Sharpening. In sharpening for source, one applies an unsharp mask globally using the luminosity blend mode with the radius determined by the resolution of the camera and the amount determined by the strength of the camera's anti-aliasing filter. One uses the blend if sliders to limit the effect to the midtones.

The content sharpening is determined by whether one wished to emphasize high, mid, or low frequency detail in the image and is done through an edge mask to limit the sharpening to the edges.

I'm not sure how you would separate out these two processes with PKSharpener or with the new tools built into ACR or if it is ever desirable to do so.

Having done that, you finish processing the image and then as the last step before printing you do the output sharpening, as Jeff says, based on the PPI of the final output. This is all explained in Bruce and Jeff's new book on Camera Raw for Photoshop CS3 - a highly recommended read.
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The output sharpening parameters are determined not only by resolution in the final print but also by the nature of the printing process. More sharpening is needed for an inkjet printer or for a half-tone printing press, whereas less sharpening is needed for a contone printer such as the Fuji Frontier or the Lightjet. What resolution to send to the printer can also be problematic. In most cases, Bruce recommended sending the image as is to the printer without re sampling up or down. For large prints, you might want to consider use of a deconvolution algorithm such as the adaptive Lucy-Richardson or FocusMagic. How to integrate these tools into the output sharpening process is not well defined.

To gain some insight into these processes, I would recommend reading Bruce's Real World Sharpening book as well as the ACR book by Bruce and Jeff. I don't know of a good reference for the deconvolution techniques.

[Mark D Segal]

Mark's advice is very well reasoned, but putting it into practice with a given set of tools could prove problematic. In Bruce Fraser's sharpening work flow, sharpening for source (camera) and content (the nature of the subject) are combined in Capture Sharpening.

The content sharpening is determined by whether one wished to emphasize high, mid, or low frequency detail in the image and is done through an edge mask to limit the sharpening to the edges.

I'm not sure how you would separate out these two processes with PKSharpener or with the new tools built into ACR or if it is ever desirable to do so.

The output sharpening parameters are determined not only by resolution in the final print but also by the nature of the printing process. More sharpening is needed for an inkjet printer or for a half-tone printing press, whereas less sharpening is needed for a contone printer such as the Fuji Frontier or the Lightjet. What resolution to send to the printer can also be problematic. In most cases, Bruce recommended sending the image as is to the printer without re sampling up or down. For large prints, you might want to consider use of a deconvolution algorithm such as the adaptive Lucy-Richardson or FocusMagic. How to integrate these tools into the output sharpening process is not well defined.

To gain some insight into these processes, I would recommend reading Bruce's Real World Sharpening book as well as the ACR book by Bruce and Jeff. I don't know of a good reference for the deconvolution techniques.
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Bill,

Capture Sharpening in PK allows for sharpening according to a large number of individual capture sources and resolutions, and according to the frequency of the image data. In Camera Raw the latter is handled with the Detail slider, while Camera Raw itself is customized to your camera.

And yes, Output sharpening also depends on the nature of the output and this catered for with PK's Output sharpeners.

There really are no issues selecting a printing resolution. Test after test for inkjet printing demonstrates that sending anything in the range of 240PPI to 480 PPI to an Epson printer without resampling will produce a very high quality result, generally speaking the lower resolutions being preferred for larger prints and higher resolutions for smaller prints. Resampling is seldom necessary as long as native resolution can be maintained within this range. When resampling is necessary, more often than not Photoshop's BiCubic Sharper and BiCubic Smoother do a very good job of downsizing and upsizing respectively.

[skipc]

i use photokit for personal work, but the photo editor's response indicates to me that he would rather apply the sharpening in-house "than receive a poorly sharpened file", or would prefer having the unsharpened file available in the event further prepress adjustments are required. hardly clueless, if you understand the trade and the mis-mashed files editors receive. best...skip

[digitaldog]

In the end, what is required is that some degree of trust and respect exist between the photographer and publisher. Once that is established, then they can work out who does what in the process.

You've done this right, I mean, you're a photographer or someone who works with publishers and photographic images right? I only ask because I don't see who you really are or a link to some site so I'm curious if this is a real world experience or a desire for a process in the so called perfect world.

Jeff's take may seem hard noised but it pretty much ensures results and no issue in how the files are sharpened and ultimately reproduced. Yes, a lesser known photographer might not please the client with such a stance but the client will be far less happy if the image reproduces poorly.

Either you take controls and responsibility or you have good paper work that takes you out of the loop of responsibility. Anything else is risky business. And then there's the prefect world....

[walter.sk]

For large prints, you might want to consider use of a deconvolution algorithm such as the adaptive Lucy-Richardson or FocusMagic. How to integrate these tools into the output sharpening process is not well defined.

I don't know of a good reference for the deconvolution techniques.
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I've played with various sharpening techniques and workflows, and had been happy with PKSharpen for capture sharpening, selectively applied edge sharpening for creative sharpening, and then PKSharpen after up-interpolating to print size from my 1DMkII files.  A couple of years ago I discovered Focus Magic, a deconvolution program you've mentioned.  I used it after uprezzing my images.  Eventually  I stopped using anything for "capture" sharpening, as the deconvolution program seemed to accomplish that, as well as making up for the uprezzing.  I would then apply PKSharpen's output sharpening, although in many images, Focus Magic seemed to make even that unnecessary.  

Focus Magic does not seem to have the effect of other sharpening schemes, but really does seem to help the blur caused by the AA Filter and/or uprezzing disappear.  When I A-B the image before and after, it appears to "pop into focus" in a much more natural way than any use of USM and Edge sharpening techniques with a mask.
I measure the width of the blur at several points in the image and choose the highest blur width that does not create visible artifacts,  or, sometimes I will make a rough selection around the area within the depth of field in the image, and Focus Magic that.  I have been using Qimage to print from, but always did the up-interpolation to final image size myself, because I wanted to include Focus Magic at the full image size.

After reading Mike Chaney's Qimage articles on his website, I no longer use Photoshop to uprez my images.  I use ACR's Clarity control to pick up what we used to call "local contrast," and apply Focus Magic as if the native file size were the final size.  I don't do "output sharpening" anymore.  I have Qimage use an interpolation technique that seems to produce results at least as good as Bicubic Smoother, and on many prints, better with fewer artifacts.  I use Qimage's "Smart Sharpen,"  which takes into account the medium and final resolution.  In printing 20x30 and 24x36 I have yet to be disappointed by this workflow.  Using the HPZ3100, I put a 16bit or 8bit Tiff file at 300ppi into Qimage and have it uprezzed on the fly to the printer, which is set for 600ppi.

I have compared a number of prints (admittedly a small number) done with my old workflow to the new one, and find that the judicious use of the Clarity slider, plus Focus Magic, and then Qimage's Smart Sharpen, usually one notch above the "Default"  setting, gives me the most natural looking sharpening and, for me, at least, the most pleasing effect.  "Smart Sharpen" appears to take into account the aspects of the image that PKSharpen does.  The only reason I no longer use PKSharpen's output sharpening is that Qimage takes care of that on the fly.