Help with high res export to web

[nickberg1978]

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!!

[Tony Jay]

Hi Nick, welcome to LuLa.

Are you sharpening in the export dialog?
Part of the dialog allows one to sharpen for 'screen' viewing.
It is also possible to select the degree of sharpening.

Possibly it is worth repeating that sharpening is not a one-stop process.
We talk about capture sharpening - nearly all images benefit from capture sharpening - and it is likely that this is what you have been doing.
Creative sharpening is often regional (not applied to the entire image), say eyes in a portrait.
Output sharpening is the third and last part of the sharpening process and this depends on the output medium.
Until Lightroom came along output sharpening was difficult to optimize and took a lot of experience to do properly (unless one had Photokit Sharpener of course!)
Lightroom incorporates the best of Photokit Sharpener to make the whole process of output sharpening much easier, whether sharpening for printing or the web or digital projection is now easy.
The degree of output sharpening applied depends to some extent on one's tastes regarding capture sharpening.

Output sharpening is available in the export dialog, and all the the output modules in Lightroom, whether there are sharpening options for one to manipulate or not.
In the Slideshow module for example everything the algorithm needs to know to optimize output sharpening is known to Lightroom and is applied 'under the hood' without any input from the user.
In the Print module however Lightroom cannot implicitly know what kind of paper one is using nor the dimensions and resolution of the print until this is clarified by the user so there is much more interaction required between Lightroom and the user for appropriate output sharpening to occur.
However, once that information is known then the algorithm can do the rest. Nonetheless, it is still a feedback process and more or less sharpening may need to be applied according to one's taste.

I would also highly recommend buying the Lightroom4 tutorial series available on this website.
The advantage of this tutorial is not just in demonstrating what happens when one manipulates a particular button or control but in fact how one co-ordinates an entire workflow from capture to output, whether that output be print or web output or a book, etc. The 'Camera to Print and Screen' tutorial is also a must-have accompaniment.
I would also highly recommend Jeff Schewes latest series of books - 'The Digital Negative' and 'The Digital Print' for an in-depth treatment.

Tony Jay

[Malco]

Make sure you are setting the colour space to sRGB as this will have an effect.

[eliedinur]

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.

[Tony Jay]

Make sure you are setting the colour space to sRGB as this will have an effect.

On sharpening?

[Tony Jay]

...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...

That is a good point!

Tony Jay

[nickberg1978]

Wow thanks for all the insight. Yes I am new to photography and I just want to show the images I am taking in the best way possible. I am not too concerned at this moment of them being stolen but it is a point well taken. I will do more testing and trying out. Posting to facebook and tumblr and a little on flickr at this point. Looking to eventually get into a business frame of mind so learning how to present best quality. Thank you all for the considered answers really appreciate it!!