Photokit Sharpener Workflow

[jdyke]

There is no setting that will work for everything.  It depends on the image.  

I start with capture sharpen - I find medium edge works for landscapes, wide edge for portaits and anything with grass or trees in the foreground (or other fine detail) use narrorw or super fine.  

Cretaive shapening - I tend to use the edge sharpen 2 brush then play about with the opacity.  I don't tend to use the global settings much although on very soft images I have tried to odd luminance sharpen.  

Why sharpen something that does not need to be sharpned (like a sky!)  You are better off using the brushes so you only sharpen what you need.

For portraits I miss out the creative step as normally you want a bit of softness in a portrait.

Then finally after resizing I output sharpen to my media.
Hope this helps.

JD

[sc21]

You're right about the over-sharpening.  On the sailboat picture, with a white mast on a blue sky, and distant faces, it was very obvious that applying global Edge Sharpen 2 made everything jagged (even though this was the setting that Michael used in his essay).

And yes, I am printing them out to see the actual differences.  The way I do it is I start with a 16 bit Tiff direct from the RAW (0 Sharpness) and then apply a Capture, Creative, and Output and save it as a Tiff.  Then I do the same, changing either the Capture or Creative, and save that one, till I have five or six files to compare.

Each file is at 300 ppi, which with a 10D prints about 7 inches tall, and so, to make accurate comparisons, I just crop each to the same 1.5 inch wide section, create a New blank page at 8x11 300 ppi, drag each cropped strip onto the page, label each, and print them up on one sheet of Canon Pro Paper.

The thing is, I've always used Fred Miranda's 10D CSPro II action for sharpening, since it's designed for the 10D files and doesn't sharpen skies, and while I was hoping to improve my sharpening with the Photokit Sharpener, I'm just now, with Narrow Capture straight to Output, getting close to matching Miranda's Level 4 Fine Detail sharpening.

My next test will be a night shot (RAW 1600) to test the Smoothing sharpening, and then I'll go back and try to improve the sailboat Narrow Capture.

[sc21]

I've downloaded the trial version of Photokit Sharpener, and have started experimenting with the settings.  Since I have only a week to find out how it can help my pictures, I was hoping for some tips on your workflow and settings.

I've done my homework by reading Michael's review, Digital Outback's review, and the excellent PDF that comes with it.  I know that the Capture is Mid-Res for my 10D, and Output is Inkjet 300 for my i960, but I'm getting a little bogged down in all the other settings.

So far, testing with prints of a macro picture of a feather, matchbook, and sunflower seeds, I've found the Medium Edge Capture to be better than Narrow (too silky smooth) and Wide (blotchy, though more contrast in shadows and highlights), when set to Sharpen Edge 2 in the Creative part.  And yet Narrow Capture is better than Medium Capture (jagged lettering on matchbook) with Sharpen Luminous 3.  And I haven't gotten to the rest yet, or tweaking the opacity or Levels.

I'm moving on to a sailboat scenic now, and any tips to speed me towards optimum results would be greatly appreciated.

[jdyke]

Sorry forgot to mention, your settings seem a little strong, make sure you don't over sharpen it can look very obvious.  If the image is good enough a little sharpness is all you need, the image will do the rest.  Try printing some 6x4 of the same scene with different settings to see what you prefer.  Finally remember that you need to oversharpen on the screen slightly as the print will look softer.

JD