I am shooting with a canon t4i raw into lightroom 4. I see in the program the edits look sharp and amazing but when I export to jpeg for web display they get soft. Is it possible to create high res jpegs that look like they do in lightroom? Thanks for any assistance!!
There is not enough information here for an inclusive reply:
1. How are you viewing the image in LR4? In the Develop module a preview of the effect of the sharpening can be seen only at 1:1. In 'Fit' or 'Fill' it is simply not applied. In the Library module you can see a sharpened preview by first zooming to 1:1 in order to force the creation of an up-to-date large preview and then zooming back out.
2. How much jpg compression are you using when exporting? [As an addition to Tony's post, output sharpening for Screen will work best if you set the ppi box to around 100.]
3. How are you viewing the web image? With what browser? On what site? At 1:1 zoom or at screen size or smaller? If it is not at 1:1, the browser is resampling and downsizing the image and its algorithms for doing this are probably designed for speed and not quality. If it is the sort of photo sharing site which gives the viewer a choice of sizes at which to see the image, it is probably downsizing and resaving it as additional jpgs. Its resampling and jpg compressing policies are not known, but it's a good guess that they are less than optimum.
Thus, you can see that there are multiple factors that need to be considered. However, a good general rule is that whenever the same image is displayed in two applications for the purpose of comparing sharpness, it should be done at 1:1 (100% zoom).
BTW, posting on the web full resolution images unless you have a cogent reason for doing so and the site is password-protected, hidden or otherwise protected, seems to me like a formula for having the images stolen.