D800 Sharpening?

[Dave Gurtcheff]

I know nothing about the correct way to sharpen my files, so I leave it to the experts. By this I mean I use PK Sharpener capture sharpen, then work on the image, and final size it, then use PK Output Sharpen. Am I getting all the detail this way, or am I wasting some resolution from the large megapixel files? I am using CS5 Photoshop and Photokit Sharpener 2.
Thanks in advance
Dave

[Ellis Vener]

I have found that D800 NEF files can stand a bit more aggressive capture sharpening than standard 35mm based raw files can. Try the settings for medium format or if using Lightroom 4.1, set amount to 56 and radius to 0.7. Of course it also depends on the subject as well.Portraits may be fine with your existing settings.

[EMaz]

How about for the D800E?

[jbrembat]

How about for the D800E?

If I understood well, in D800E there is not an AA-filter. So you don't need capture sharpening unless the raw converter introduce blur.

The problem of D800E may be aliasing artifacts.

Jacopo

[EMaz]

Thank you very much for your reply.  If this is correct, I have just saved myself a step.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

If I understood well, in D800E there is not an AA-filter. So you don't need capture sharpening unless the raw converter introduce blur.

Hi Jacopo,

There are several sources of blur, and the Bayer CFA demosaicing process is not the main source. It already starts with the optics, and aperture we use, and that is assuming that we don't introduce motion blur or defocus blur ourselves.

Then there is the use of an AA-filter (or not) and the Bayer CFA undersampling of mostly chromatic information, and the fact that the sensors are not point samplers but have an area aperture. Finally there is the demosaicing process that cannot reconstruct luminance resolution perfectly, although some 93.6% isn't all that bad.

The problem of D800E may be aliasing artifacts.

That doesn't mean that cameras with an AA-filter do not show some aliasing artifacts, it's just that they have a lower risk. The effect of an AA-filter on resolution can be very small (approx. 1% in the case of the D800 vs the D800E). The D800E is more likely to create false color artifacts and stairstepped edges (jaggies) at wider apertures though.

Cheers,
Bart

[EMaz]

With that in mind, Bart, do you have any starting recommendations for sharpening with the D800E in LR4 or CS6?

Thanks...