Local Adjustment Sharpening: Radius and Detail default values?

[sm906]

Hi folks,

as we know the Detail Section in the Development Module has four sliders to fine tune sharpness. The local adjustment tools brush, radial filter and ND filter however only have a single slider to sharpen selectively (same for noise).

My question: Which default settings for radius and detail are used behind the scenes when sharpening with the local adjustment tools? Are the default LR settings applied (radius = 1,0 and detail = 25) or is it the settings in the detail sharpening section as set by the user?

Kind regards

Thomas

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

My question: Which default settings for radius and detail are used behind the scenes when sharpening with the local adjustment tools? Are the default LR settings applied (radius = 1,0 and detail = 25) or is it the settings in the detail sharpening section as set by the user?

Hi Thomas,

AFAIK it's using the same settings for the local adjustment 'layers' as you use in the details panel. You can only adjust the overall sharpness or noise amounts.

Cheers,
Bart

[john beardsworth]

AFAIK it's using the same settings for the local adjustment 'layers' as you use in the details panel.

Local sharpening is not quite the same. Apart from anything else, it can have negative values and at -50 to -100 produces more of a blurring effect.

I don't think I've seen anything said publicly about the radius and detail, but I'm not sure that information would be as helpful as looking at image and evaluating the actual effect of dragging the slider.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Local sharpening is not quite the same. Apart from anything else, it can have negative values and at -50 to -100 produces more of a blurring effect.

Hi John,

That's correct, and if the detail panel would allow negative amounts it would also blur.

I don't think I've seen anything said publicly about the radius and detail, but I'm not sure that information would be as helpful as looking at image and evaluating the actual effect of dragging the slider.

I vaguely recall either Jeff Schewe or Eric Chan confirming something like it, here on LuLa, but you're right that it ultimately is what the effect looks like which is important. However, not being able to adjust the radius is a big drawback, especially when compared to the level of control of e.g. Topaz Detail (can be called directly from LR, but obviously is not applied parametrically) which operates completely halo-free on multiple levels of detail size. TP Detail also allows better Deconvolution sharpening with its Deblur control, and of course it can also blur detail.

Cheers,
Bart

[john beardsworth]

While they could always add the other sliders to the local adjustments, Bart, there's obviously a point when so few users would benefit and/or the extra control goes beyond Lightroom's scope. I suppose that I'm happy with Adobe's judgment here, and with not knowing exact details of the local radius/detail values - I'm very wary of "adjusting by numbers" taking over from using our eyes. Maybe Eric or Jeff have written about local radius/detail values - but if they haven't, I don't think anyone else would have done so.

[AFairley]

My recollection - and I could be wrong - is that on the LULA LR video Jeff says the radius and detail are the same as the global setting and only amount changes in the spot adjustment.

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

My recollection - and I could be wrong - is that on the LULA LR video Jeff says the radius and detail are the same as the global setting and only amount changes in the spot adjustment.

That's exactly what I also have in my mind, and that is the reason that you cannot only add sharpness by local control, but you can also reduce sharpness you applied in the detail panel by using an negativ amount.

by the way, up to a specific negativ amount you reduce already applied sharpness, and then you apply softness, similiar to Gaussian blur. As far as I remember, going down to 50% reduces already applied sharpness from the detail panel and going far to minus, you apply Gaussian blur.
 ( Jeff, please, let me live if I quoted you not 100% correctly  )

[sm906]

My recollection - and I could be wrong - is that on the LULA LR video Jeff says the radius and detail are the same as the global setting and only amount changes in the spot adjustment.

Thanks for pointing me to the LuLa videos. Indeed that's what I left out when researching for the sharpness issue. I do have all the videos available and I will check this today.

Update: Bart you're right. In LuLa Learning Video for LR4 "20_Grad_AdjBrush", Jeff explained: The sharpness slider in the local adjustments tools adds or subtracts the amount of sharpness, all that based on the adjustements in the detail panel.

Kind regards

Thomas