Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: bernie west on March 05, 2019, 10:13:50 pm

Title: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 05, 2019, 10:13:50 pm
Ok, I admit right off the start that this is a highly subjective question/answer.  But I'm wondering how much capture sharpening to apply on raw files in Lightroom.  To keep this somewhat objective, should I be aiming for a bit of sharpness to counteract some of the general blur, or should I be aiming for "wow, that's perfectly sharp!"?
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 05, 2019, 11:34:51 pm
Sharpening will not remove "general blur", in the sense that it will not make an out of focus photo in focus (unless it were a good case for some kind of deconvolution sharpening). For photos that are in-focus, use a 100% magnification and examine the photo as you sharpen it to make sure there are no visible halos and the sharpening results don't look forced. The idea is to enhance micro-contrast without making it obvious by creating halos and other artifacts.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 06, 2019, 12:24:14 am
Ok, I admit right off the start that this is a highly subjective question/answer.  But I'm wondering how much capture sharpening to apply on raw files in Lightroom.  To keep this somewhat objective, should I be aiming for a bit of sharpness to counteract some of the general blur, or should I be aiming for "wow, that's perfectly sharp!"?

In Lr there is no capture sharpening. Sharpening is final edited image sharpening. There is print sharpening post edit, for targeted printing.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 01:04:22 am
So Mark, would you aim for a crisp image, as opposed to just slightly counteracting the softness of the raw capture?

Adias, the sharpening panel in Lightroom is applied to the raw image, so it is indeed capture sharpening.  Output sharpening is what is used when you export at your preferred resolution.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 06, 2019, 02:58:08 am
So Mark, would you aim for a crisp image, as opposed to just slightly counteracting the softness of the raw capture?

Adias, the sharpening panel in Lightroom is applied to the raw image, so it is indeed capture sharpening.  Output sharpening is what is used when you export at your preferred resolution.

That is not what Jeff Schewe (current developer of the sharpen technique/amount/module) calls it. Lr sharpening is applied to the edited image raw conversion + edits, ready to archive. Maybe Jeff can opine on this.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: john beardsworth on March 06, 2019, 03:21:20 am
You may have misread him.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Tony Jay on March 06, 2019, 04:47:28 am
In Lr there is no capture sharpening. Sharpening is final edited image sharpening. There is print sharpening post edit, for targeted printing.
I am sorry, from somewhere you have gotten the wrong end of the stick...

Tony Jay
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 06, 2019, 08:31:27 am
So Mark, would you aim for a crisp image, as opposed to just slightly counteracting the softness of the raw capture?

Adias, the sharpening panel in Lightroom is applied to the raw image, so it is indeed capture sharpening.  Output sharpening is what is used when you export at your preferred resolution.

Bernie and Adias,

(1) Let's not get hung-up on whether to call it Capture Sharpening or something else - doesn't matter to this workflow in LR.
(2) Especially, as the user-determined sequencing of the operation doesn't matter in LR. You can apply it at whatever stage of image editing you want; LR looks after the correct sequence of processing when it renders the image.
(3) Bernie: be careful about "crisp" - when it starts to look unnaturally "crispy" is when you want to back-off a bit. This is to taste. There are no hard-wired rules.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 07:24:13 pm
What I mean by "crisp" is essentially a perfectly sharpened image.  Are we aiming for that with capture sharpening, or do we just remove some of the inherent softness of the raw?  Traditionally I just remove some of the softness and worry about sharpening it perfectly later on output.  But I've never been really happy with my final images in terms of sharpness.  I'm wondering if that's because I'm taking the wrong approach to capture sharpening.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 06, 2019, 07:45:58 pm
In Lr there is no capture sharpening. Sharpening is final edited image sharpening. There is print sharpening post edit, for targeted printing.
There absolutely IS capture sharpening in Lightroom and Jeff agrees (note, the capture and output sharpening in LR are based on our product, PhotoKit Sharpener).

https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=94614.msg772711#msg772711 (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=94614.msg772711#msg772711)

Jeff Schewe wrote:
This is the biggest issue I have with your workflow...you should be doing noise reduction and capture sharpening in LR before taking it to Photoshop, or, in the very least, do the Noise reduction and sharpening in the ACR Smart Object.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 06, 2019, 07:58:46 pm
What I mean by "crisp" is essentially a perfectly sharpened image.  Are we aiming for that with capture sharpening, or do we just remove some of the inherent softness of the raw?  Traditionally I just remove some of the softness and worry about sharpening it perfectly later on output.  But I've never been really happy with my final images in terms of sharpness.  I'm wondering if that's because I'm taking the wrong approach to capture sharpening.

A "perfectly sharpened image" is a subjective concept. Sharpen to taste.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Wayne Fox on March 06, 2019, 08:12:29 pm
to me, capture sharpening isn’t a  specific “function” built into the software, but rather a sharpening step in a multi sharpening workflow as taught by Bruce Frasier along with the others from Pixel Genius such as Jeff and Andrew. Capture sharpening is extremely subtle, and to me a vital step in any good workflow.  It’s purpose is to remove softness introduced by the digital process, such as from anti alias filters and such. Lightroom’s sharpening functions to me are primarily capture sharpening oriented, and for most people the defaults will serve them well.  Over sharpening a full image may easily lead to that over crispy look. You could turn all that off and then head to photoshop to “capture” sharpen, the follow that with creative sharpening, but I think LR does a great job so to me that’s just more work.

The ability to use masking can also make it a very useful creative sharpening technique, and in fact I’ve on occasion used it on the tiff file that comes back from Lightroom. For creative sharpening, applying additional sharpening in a local adjustment can also works OK,(it would be very useful if you could also used the other properties of sharpening, especially masking when adding sharpening to local adjustments. ) So usually Photoshop is a better tool for creative sharpening and LR is better suited for the subtle yet necessary step of capture sharpening before you sent the data over to PS.

I tend to use Focus Magic quite a bit, whether that can be considered “capture” or “creative” I’m not sure, since it is also very subtle.  But it’s always a second step in sharpening, I don’t turn off LR’s sharpening so Focus Magic can do all of the sharpening.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 09:33:08 pm
A "perfectly sharpened image" is a subjective concept. Sharpen to taste.

Your missing the jist of the question.  Am I sharpening it to a point that I would judge that it doesn't need anymore sharpening at that size, or am I just somewhat removing the softness of the image inherent in raw capture?
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 06, 2019, 09:34:11 pm
Your missing the jist of the question.  Am I sharpening it to a point that I would judge that it doesn't need anymore sharpening at that size, or am I just somewhat removing the softness of the image inherent in raw capture?
Go to the source in terms of this workflow:
http://creativepro.com/out-of-gamut-thoughts-a-sharpening-workflow/
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 09:36:44 pm
Thanks Wayne and Andrew.

Wayne, you possibly know this already, but I had a conversation (via the forum) with Schewe a couple of years ago and he pointed out that the local adjustment sharpening uses the same settings for all the sliders in the global sharpen panel.  So if you have a satisfactory masking in the global sharpen, you'll get it also in the local sharpen.  I'm recalling this from memory, so I hope I got that right.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 09:42:59 pm
Looking at that article from Bruce Fraser, he states that you want to use a "modest" amount of sharpening for capture sharpening.  That seems to imply that you don't want to give it 'perfect' sharpness right at capture.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 06, 2019, 11:11:00 pm
Your missing the jist of the question.  Am I sharpening it to a point that I would judge that it doesn't need anymore sharpening at that size, or am I just somewhat removing the softness of the image inherent in raw capture?

No, I wasn't missing the jist of your question. I'm suggesting that you sharpen to taste, regardless of the applications you use. Just be aware that different tools work differently in different software environments, so adapt your practices accordingly. For example, if you use Photoshop and within it you use Photokit Sharpener, the advice Andrew and Wayne provided makes sense. Reading the excellent manual that comes with that product will give you ample guidance on how to approach it. If you sharpen in Lightroom, there are two stages of sharpening. The stage in the print module is there to deal with the softening that would otherwise occur in printing. How it is applied depends on resolution and physical dimensions only and not a matter of taste. You implement it, but don't worry about its effect, because if working properly, you won't notice it. In Lightroom the sharpening you have most control over is the tool in the Develop Module, and you use that one to taste. There is also excellent instruction on how to use that tool in what Andrew linked, and also importantly in Martin Evening's Lightroom books. But however you approach it, how much you apply and where in the photo is subjective.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 06, 2019, 11:17:51 pm
"Sharpen to taste" is meaningless in the context of the question.  Wayne and Andrew (via Bruce Fraser) have answered the question.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Wayne Fox on March 07, 2019, 12:31:55 am
Thanks Wayne and Andrew.

Wayne, you possibly know this already, but I had a conversation (via the forum) with Schewe a couple of years ago and he pointed out that the local adjustment sharpening uses the same settings for all the sliders in the global sharpen panel.  So if you have a satisfactory masking in the global sharpen, you'll get it also in the local sharpen.  I'm recalling this from memory, so I hope I got that right.
I do remember that.  But my thought process would be to still use the normal sharpening for capture sharpening, and often a mask isn’t even necessary or desirable,  then use a local adjustment for some creative sharpening, where I might want to use an aggressive mask, for example to bring out the detail of the small veins in a leaf without crunching up the smooth areas between them.  I can’t crank the mask up in the normal sharpening dialog because now it might remove areas of capture sharpening I would like to retain.

regular sharpening sometimes works great for creative sharpening if you’ve already headed to photoshop and are now working with the resulting tiff file. I've done that a few times.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bernie west on March 07, 2019, 12:56:44 am
Yeah, I think you are right about the masking for local.  When I had my D810 I used to shoot surf photography (still do sometimes with an XPro2; I look a bit weird..) with only a 200mm lens, so I was always cropping in quite a bit for the final image.  Manual focus lens as well (couldn't afford an actual Nikkor or Sigma autofocus).  So I was always pushing resolution and sharpness.  I've often found myself pumping up the local sharpening but also the local noise reduction to compensate for the sharpening of noise in the skin/body.  Having the ability to apply masking locally would have been a better option.

edit:  actually I tell a lie.  It was an autofocus lens, but old and not all that sharp.  Currently I'm shooting with a Nikkor AIS 300mm on my XPro2.  That's manual focus, of course, and along with the Xpro2 really quite a ridiculous set up for surf photography. 
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 09, 2019, 08:45:48 pm
There absolutely IS capture sharpening in Lightroom ...

I disagree! Bruce Frasier's nomenclature of Capture, Output, Print sharpening was in a world of 3 separate functions. It's still valid if one uses a standalone Raw Converter where Capture Sharpening is applied, followed by a photo editor where Output Sharpening is applied as the last layered step, followed by a print app where Print Sharpening is used as appropriate the printing res and surface demands.

In Lightroom which includes a raw converter (ACR) and a layered photo editor there is only one sharpening and that is Output Sharpening, which, as others said, it should be applied to taste, or in my view applied so that the image looks best at 100% view. Of course, if one uses Lightroom as a standalone raw converter and reserves full editing for a photo editor, such as PS, whatever sharpening Lr does is Capture Sharpening, which should be applied cautiously, given that final Output sharpening will be the last step of the photo editor.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 09, 2019, 08:53:58 pm
I disagree! Bruce Frasier's nomenclature of Capture, Output, Print sharpening was in a world of 3 separate functions. It's still valid if one uses a standalone Raw Converter where Capture Sharpening is applied, followed by a photo editor where Output Sharpening is applied as the last layered step, followed by a print app where Print Sharpening is used as appropriate the printing res and surface demands.
You can disagree and be wrong dude, Bruce (and I, and Jeff and PG/Company) licensed our product TO Adobe for capture sharpening IN Lightroom. Got the very handsome checks to show for it. And of course, Jeff stated as well, in the URL I posted that indeed LR has capture sharpening.
So go ahead and disagree all you want; you're utterly wrong.  ;)
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 09, 2019, 09:05:23 pm
In Lightroom which includes a raw converter (ACR) and a layered photo editor there is only one sharpening and that is Output Sharpening, which, as others said, it should be applied to taste, or in my view applied so that the image looks best at 100% view.
Missed this?

Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 09, 2019, 10:41:00 pm
You can disagree and be wrong dude, Bruce (and I, and Jeff and PG/Company) licensed our product TO Adobe for capture sharpening IN Lightroom. Got the very handsome checks to show for it. And of course, Jeff stated as well, in the URL I posted that indeed LR has capture sharpening.
So go ahead and disagree all you want; you're utterly wrong.  ;)

So Andrew you must be right. But if Lr only does Capture Sharpening, then an image fully processed by Lr and displayed as such must lack sharpening... and we know it does not. In any case, this an argument akin of how many angels and on the head of a pin. ;)
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 09, 2019, 10:56:13 pm
So Andrew you must be right. But if Lr only does Capture Sharpening, then an image fully processed by Lr and displayed as such must lack sharpening... and we know it does not. In any case, this an argument akin of how many angels and on the head of a pin. ;)
LR can only do capture sharpening; what gave you that further misunderstanding?
Yes I am right.
No argument. If you need one, you are dealing with the wrong guy. You need to go here:
https://vimeo.com/25921512
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 10, 2019, 01:14:47 am
LR can only do capture sharpening; what gave you that further misunderstanding?
Yes I am right.
No argument. If you need one, you are dealing with the wrong guy. You need to go here:...


I am just using Frasier's nomenclature logic from his book, but given your new road, I take another path moving away from your journey.

But I learned something from what you emphatically state - Lr only does capture sharpening and thus images displayed by Lr are therefore not sharpened. Good to know!
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Tony Jay on March 10, 2019, 04:45:43 am
I am just using Frasier's nomenclature logic from his book, but given your new road, I take another path moving away from your journey.

But I learned something from what you emphatically state - Lr only does capture sharpening and thus images displayed by Lr are therefore not sharpened. Good to know!
Honestly you are being really stupid here!
ALL the sharpening tools in Lightroom are derived from a product called Photokit Sharpener of which two of the creators of that product are active on this forum: Jeff Schewe and Andrew Rodney (AKA digitaldog on this forum).

Lightroom has access to three levels of sharpening: capture sharpening, creative sharpening and output sharpening...

The guys you are arguing with and misquoting are the reason those sharpening options actually exist in Lightroom in their current form!

Wake up and smell the coffee!!!!
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 09:43:32 am
But I learned something from what you emphatically state - Lr only does capture sharpening and thus images displayed by Lr are therefore not sharpened. Good to know!
No! It does both capture and limited output sharpening. It should be obvious to anyone using LR who's ventured into the Develop (as shown) and Print module.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 10, 2019, 10:19:57 am
I am just using Frasier's nomenclature logic from his book, but given your new road, I take another path moving away from your journey.

But I learned something from what you emphatically state - Lr only does capture sharpening and thus images displayed by Lr are therefore not sharpened. Good to know!

It's kinda pointless arguing with people who don't know what they are talking about and refuse to recognize that they don't know what they don't know.

The exact process description in Bruce Fraser's book is relevant to a three-stage sharpening process, whereas Lightroom uses a two stage sharpening process. Therefore it is obvious that process adaptation has occurred between what is in Fraser's book and what is happening in Lightroom. You aren't qualified to know how that adaptation was designed and scripted, therefore you aren't qualified to pass judgment on what the Develop stage of sharpening implies. You can however look at your images as you sharpen them in the Develop module and judge for yourself whether they look correctly sharpened, as I tried to impart to another member of this thread who seems to think it irrelevant to introduce taste and judgment as a primary consideration in the sharpening process. The sharpening that takes place in the Print Module, however, doesn't depend on taste or judgement; it is there only to provide for the sharpening requirements of printing in order to maintain your desired sharpness in the printed product, and that is why it depends only on resolution and dimensions. So sharpen to taste in the Develop Module, at 100% to see the effect, and be happy when you've got it right - to taste.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Rand47 on March 10, 2019, 10:41:01 am
This conversation seems a bit “angry” for no good reason.  I use Lightroom’s capture sharpening all the time.  Then I’ll often do some “creative” local sharpeneing using the local adjustment brush (very carefully).  Then I do output sharpening when making a print from Lightroom’s excellent print module.  The print sharpening selections, though seemingly “too simple” are actually quite excellent in my view, and “on the fly” for whatever print size one is making.  OR, I do output sharpening via the export dialog for “screen” if I’m exporting a copy of my master file to be displayed on, well, screens.

All three; all very nicely executed.  Jeff Schewe’s books “The Digital Negative” and “The Digital Print” are excellent when it comes to understanding how it all works, and how much “good stuff” there is under the hood in Lightroom.  I will often turn off the default amounts of capture sharpening that Lightroom applies on import, and start from scratch.  I find that thoughtful use of the masking before I begin to “do much” helps a lot with the quality of the outcome of Amount, Radius, and Detail sliders.  And as Jeff points out, there is an interrelationship between the noise sliders and sharpening sliders so that I’ll often tweak the sharpening after I’ve addressed any needed noise adjustments.  IF I remember correctly, there’s an excellent tutorial that Jeff gives in the “From Camera to Screen and Print” videos.

Are there other, more sophisticated, ways to do sharpening?  Certainly.  Perhaps especially for problem image files.  But Lightroom’s tools really are excellent in their own right thanks to Andrew, Jeff and the others at Pixel Genius.  And, these days, you’d have to beat me with a rubber hose to get me to print out of Photoshop, versus Lightroom!  Lightroom’s Print Module, with the ability to create presets for printer, paper, size, layout, ICC profile application, is FABULOUS.  The only variable that I need to remember is rendering intent, because Lightroom’s soft proof rendering intent selection isn’t “sticky” when you go from soft proof to Print Module.

Rand
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 12:46:53 pm
This conversation seems a bit “angry” for no good reason.
Fact deniers make some angry.  ::)
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on March 10, 2019, 12:49:39 pm
Fact deniers make some angry.  ::)

But how helpful it that ...?

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 12:52:58 pm
But how helpful it that ...?

Cheers,
Bart
To be angry? Difficult (and I cannot or will not ever) to speak for others. Calling posts angry of others could be considered assumptions. Calling out fact deniers with actual facts is super helpful for non fact deniers.
Some can be angry in posting repeated facts unheard by the fact deniers and provide the facts. The two are not mutually exclusive. 
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 10, 2019, 01:04:25 pm
Fact deniers make some angry.  ::)

Well Andrew, there's always "alternative facts" and then one doesn't need to get angry after all!  ;D

OK, back to serious - Rand - this isn't a matter of being angry. The problem is that when any of us write stuff that's just simply wrong, (which any of us can periodically do), and then rather than simply accepting correction from those who know it better persist in reiterating misunderstanding, it sets back constructive progress of the conversation and distracts from gaining useful insight that many of us come here to share. So it's not helpful, and sometimes one is motivated to be a bit insistent in the interest of improving the signal to noise ratio.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on March 10, 2019, 01:08:46 pm
... in the interest of improving the signal to noise ratio.

+1

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 10, 2019, 01:12:50 pm
But how helpful it that ...?

Cheers,
Bart

This forum, like many others, lost it long ago. Angry and insulting, in areas where 'facts' in this case border on semantics, but that is the world we live in. Checking out.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 01:30:07 pm
This forum, like many others, lost it long ago. Angry and insulting, in areas where 'facts' in this case border on semantics, but that is the world we live in. Checking out.
Maybe you should move on then. No great loss.  :o

"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it". Joseph Joubert
Of course, the debate was settled with actual facts, LR has both capture and output sharpening!
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 10, 2019, 02:05:26 pm
Maybe you should move on then. No great loss.  :o

"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it". Joseph Joubert
Of course, the debate was settled with actual facts, LR has both capture and output sharpening!

This is insane! I said that Lr obviously has capture and creative and output/printing. I said its many times. I also said that if Lr was only used as a raw converter without touching the sharpen lever capture would be the sharpen used. It's all good!
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 03:28:14 pm
This is insane! I said that Lr obviously has capture and creative and output/printing. I said its many times.
Try again before existing, post #3:
adias  wrote: In Lr there is no capture sharpening.
Perhaps you respond better to images than text:
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: adias on March 10, 2019, 03:53:30 pm
Try again before existing, post #3:
adias  wrote: In Lr there is no capture sharpening.
Perhaps you respond better to images than text:

Insane and insulting again! I said there is no capture sharpening [per se] because in Lr an image can be fully edited and sharpened for taste.

I made a comment on semantics. You disagree and it is fine. But for the end user Lr does capture and creative sharpening as a minimum. I call it capture only if the user loads an image in Lr, does nothing to it (as far as sharpening - using the default) and passing it to PS for creative sharpening and further output/printing sharpening.

I hope that what I meant is clearer. In retrospect not worth the effort, but I owe it to the silent readers. ;)
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 04:30:43 pm
Insane and insulting again! I said there is no capture sharpening [per se] because in Lr an image can be fully edited and sharpened for taste.
And that's utterly wrong. If you're insulted by being corrected, tough. You don't have the foggiest idea of what you're talking about with respect to LR and sharpening. It has nothing to do with semantics, that's not going to wash here. No, you're not clearer, you're still absolutely wrong. You've been told by multiple people, even one what helped design the sharpening in the product itself. What's insane is you don't have the capacity to learn then accept facts. You're in a bubble. You really SHOULD move onto another web forum where myth and alternative facts rule the day. Maybe there, some will take your posts seriously.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: faberryman on March 10, 2019, 04:31:22 pm
Insane and insulting again! I said there is no capture sharpening [per se] because in Lr an image can be fully edited and sharpened for taste.

I made a comment on semantics. You disagree and it is fine. But for the end user Lr does capture and creative sharpening as a minimum. I call it capture only if the user loads an image in Lr, does nothing to it (as far as sharpening - using the default) and passing it to PS for creative sharpening and further output/printing sharpening.

I hope that what I meant is clearer. In retrospect not worth the effort, but I owe it to the silent readers. ;)
Calling a swan a goose does not make it a goose. It is not semantics. You are using the term capture sharpening incorrectly. Get with the program.
Title: Try getting out of your alternative fact reality!
Post by: digitaldog on March 10, 2019, 04:57:17 pm

Indeed, It is not semantics. That's a lame excuse.

But what does Adobe know about the naming of capture sharpening in LR adais?
http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/05/capture-sharpening-in-lightroom.html (http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/05/capture-sharpening-in-lightroom.html)
Julieanne Kost's Blog /
Capture Sharpening in Lightroom

Or JP Caponigro:
https://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/16939/capture-sharpening-with-lightroom-adobe-camera-raw/ (https://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/16939/capture-sharpening-with-lightroom-adobe-camera-raw/)

Or your go to source adais: Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (in their book):
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/real-world-image/9780321679307/ (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/real-world-image/9780321679307/)
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Rand47 on March 10, 2019, 07:43:21 pm
Well Andrew, there's always "alternative facts" and then one doesn't need to get angry after all!  ;D

OK, back to serious - Rand - this isn't a matter of being angry. The problem is that when any of us write stuff that's just simply wrong, (which any of us can periodically do), and then rather than simply accepting correction from those who know it better persist in reiterating misunderstanding, it sets back constructive progress of the conversation and distracts from gaining useful insight that many of us come here to share. So it's not helpful, and sometimes one is motivated to be a bit insistent in the interest of improving the signal to noise ratio.

Mark (and Andrew),

My “angry” comment was intended for “adias” - hoping he’d tone down the incorrect, and as it has turned out, somewhat arrogant and pugnacious rhetoric.  I think the only thing that may be forgivable is that it appears he has no clue as to whom he’s arguing with!  Surprising, I think?

I’m smart enough around here, to at least know how dumb I am (most of the time.  :) ) when I hear one of our real authorities speak!  ;D

There’s something to be learned here, but I fear it has fallen on intentionally deaf ears.  Too bad.  Hard to advance in knowledge when the only thing on your mind is some sort of purile retort.

So, my thanks to Andrew, Jeff and Mark, for all that I’ve learned from you over the years here. 

Rand
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: BAB on March 11, 2019, 12:08:04 am
Some people can’t let their reputation do the talking...there have been many geniuses through time with short fuses doesn’t make them wrong just makes them unpleasant.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: digitaldog on March 11, 2019, 09:31:50 am
Some people can’t let their reputation do the talking...there have been many geniuses through time with short fuses doesn’t make them wrong just makes them unpleasant.
Right and unpleasant beats wrong any day of the week in my opinion.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Hoggy on March 17, 2019, 06:02:47 pm
Right and unpleasant beats wrong any day of the week in my opinion.

Make right, not love!  ;D
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: bwana on March 18, 2019, 09:36:10 pm
Although capture sharpening is applied early in the workflow, I do not see why it should be applied globally. Certain areas of the image (sky, water, etc) do not benefit from sharpening if there is no detail there to enhance.  My impression is that that the application of sharpening locally has been termed 'creative sharpening' and I certainly understand this application of sharpening. But why would anyone want to apply sharpening globally.?
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Mark D Segal on March 18, 2019, 10:48:08 pm
Two ways to handle this: use the masking slider in the sharpening tool. Or, sharpen selectively by creating local adjustment masks and using the sharpening tool therein. Most of what you don't necessarily want to sharpen is sky and skin, for which the masking slider inside the sharpening tool is well-adapted to handle.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Zen8 on March 20, 2019, 06:19:40 am
Although capture sharpening is applied early in the workflow, I do not see why it should be applied globally. Certain areas of the image (sky, water, etc) do not benefit from sharpening if there is no detail there to enhance.  My impression is that that the application of sharpening locally has been termed 'creative sharpening' and I certainly understand this application of sharpening. But why would anyone want to apply sharpening globally.?

That is what the masking sider is for and you can also use the brush for creative sharpening.     
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: nemophoto on March 26, 2019, 08:58:20 am
In Lr there is no capture sharpening. Sharpening is final edited image sharpening. There is print sharpening post edit, for targeted printing.
This is not correct. Any sharpening you do within Lightroom in the develop module can be considered “capture sharpening”. LR, by default, adds a small amount to start.

I have, however, found a good setting that I use for sharpening images that I later bring into PS for additional work. (This is not to be confused with the output sharpening when you export your RAW or print via the Print Module.)

I use a setting of 80 with a radius of .5 and then mask based on subject. (For me as a fashion photographer, I want to keep skin smooth so often mask from 20-30, based on lighting, subject, camera.)

For me, I do one last bit of sharpening when I export for Photoshop. I set export sharpening to “screen - low”. I find these settings do a good job for prepping my image for additional work without introducing other artifacts. Often the images for one client are blown up to 8’ tall, others are about 17” to 20”. All are printed. However, I do roughly the same thing when I work on my landscape images which are anywhere from 5x7 to 40”x60”. The difference for all these images is NOT the sharpening I’ve done in LR when developing but sharpening for final output. Now, THERE is the real difference in settings. My clients will do final sharpening for there own needs. For myself, I usually print from Lightroom and use the excellent settings Jeff helped develop based on size and subject.


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Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: nemophoto on March 26, 2019, 09:07:47 am
That is what the masking sider is for and you can also use the brush for creative sharpening.   
The masking slider essentially masks out areas to which you don’t want to apply sharpening. For example, you don’t want to sharpen a blue sky or any other area of smooth tone. Hold down the Alt key as you use the slider and you will see the black mask as it is applied. Sharpening is really just the accentuation of edge contrast between pixels of relatively different brightness — hence contrast. Your eye sees contrast before all other elements and thus your perception of “sharpness” of an image. I used to have almost 20/10 in my left (shooting eye). Now, it’s “only” 20/20. This is because I have cataracts gradually forming and so every year, for the past three I complain to my doc that things just are not as “sharp”. One of the reasons is because the cataracts reduce the contrast and creates a blurring of the edges.


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Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Zen8 on April 01, 2019, 12:58:05 am
The masking slider essentially masks out areas to which you don’t want to apply sharpening. For example, you don’t want to sharpen a blue sky or any other area of smooth tone. Hold down the Alt key as you use the slider and you will see the black mask as it is applied. Sharpening is really just the accentuation of edge contrast between pixels of relatively different brightness — hence contrast. Your eye sees contrast before all other elements and thus your perception of “sharpness” of an image. I used to have almost 20/10 in my left (shooting eye). Now, it’s “only” 20/20. This is because I have cataracts gradually forming and so every year, for the past three I complain to my doc that things just are not as “sharp”. One of the reasons is because the cataracts reduce the contrast and creates a blurring of the edges.


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Worth it's weight in gold.   
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: saiguy on April 01, 2019, 09:32:39 am
This might be a little off topic. I scan 35mm slides using SilverFast 8. Then I open them in PS and apply Neat Image NR and Focus Magic sharpening.

It is said to not sharpen twice. Should I NOT apply any further sharpening in LR? Or might there be some merit in doing so. Any reason to not to apply some Clarity?
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: KeithR on April 01, 2019, 12:38:50 pm
The 2 areas of sharpening in LR refer 1st to capture sharpen-either globally or selectively to correct for the digital capture. The 2nd is for output (if your printing through LR) and is determined by the media (matte or glossy) and the size of the print (if you intend to print out of LR). So if you have already applied sharpening via Focus Magic, you could think of that as photo capture.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: saiguy on April 01, 2019, 02:38:41 pm
Thanks KeithR.

The scan project is about 9500 Kodachrome's. They are scanned to be 5x7 inch, 300 ppi 16 bit TIFF in ProPhoto. We will put them on a PC in a LR Catalogue. They will use that for slide shows and key word searching.

I will export them from my Mac to a PC formatted external drive. Thats where the out put sharpening will be applied.

Based on your comments I will look to applying LR sharpening, use some Clarity which is a different thing anyway, just like my previous work flow before I got Focus Magic.

Title: Re: Try getting out of your alternative fact reality!
Post by: Zen8 on April 09, 2019, 10:11:01 am
Indeed, It is not semantics. That's a lame excuse.

But what does Adobe know about the naming of capture sharpening in LR adais?
http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/05/capture-sharpening-in-lightroom.html (http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2014/05/capture-sharpening-in-lightroom.html)
Julieanne Kost's Blog /
Capture Sharpening in Lightroom

Or JP Caponigro:
https://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/16939/capture-sharpening-with-lightroom-adobe-camera-raw/ (https://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/16939/capture-sharpening-with-lightroom-adobe-camera-raw/)

Or your go to source adais: Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (in their book):
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/real-world-image/9780321679307/ (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/real-world-image/9780321679307/)

Kost's answer is kind of interesting. Default for Detail is 25 which is already suppressing sharpening. The lower the number the more halo suppression. Higher values are deconvolution but you lose halo suppression and noise appears. It seems to me that 25 is would be pretty good for landscapes. If I had not known better based on her answer I would have moved the slider to the right. I may have misinterpreted her.                       
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Dave Rosser on April 09, 2019, 11:16:44 am
The default sharpening settings in Lightroom have varied over time.  In Lightroom 4 there was a choice of 2 starting points:  Sharpening - Narrow Edges (scenic)  with settings of amount 40, radius 0.8 and detail 35 and Sharpening - Wide Edge (Faces) with settings of amount 35, radius 1.4 and detail 35.  You selected your default in the presets panel.
In the latest version of Lightroom when you open the Presets panel (Window/Panels and select Presets) you have a  choice of 4 starting settings for sharpening None, Light (25/1.0/25), Medium (45/1.0/25) and Heavy (75/1.0/25)
I mention this because there seems to be some confusion through this thread on what the default Lightroom sharpening settings are.

Edit: If you don't set a sharpening preset on import in Apply During Import/Develop Settings Lightroom defaults to 40/1.0/25
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: nemophoto on April 11, 2019, 01:02:26 pm
Where I feel LR excels is sharpening for export, especially for web/screen. It's my preferred way to sharpen for export for my web site or client's. For general Capture sharpening, I actually still prefer the sharpening in Capture One. Guess you can't have it all... Most other aspects of LR are easier and more straightforward, not to mention MUCH better custom camera profiles I create.
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: David Eichler on April 11, 2019, 05:58:35 pm
This conversation seems a bit “angry” for no good reason. 

I don't know about angry, but some frustration is understandable, since there is a variety of misinformation that various parties are offering. Also, I have the sneaking suspicion that the OP has not bothered to study an authoritative reference manual on Lightroom, which would easily have answered his question.

To correct some misinformation, I submit the following facts, and a bit of opinion:

1. Lightroom offers three types of sharpening, capture, creative and output. The creative sharpening feature may be found in the sharpening functions of the brush and gradient tools.

2. The amount of capture and creative sharpening used is interrelated with the amount of output sharpening, and is also dependent upon the subject matter and the type of equipment used to take the photo. In my opinion, since Lightroom offers a relatively limited range of output sharpening options, you need to work backward from this by choosing levels of output sharpening for your choices of output medium and selecting your capture and creative sharpening relative to that, which will require some experimentation.

3. Tastes will differ.







Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on April 12, 2019, 08:27:48 am
[...]
Edit: If you don't set a sharpening preset on import in Apply During Import/Develop Settings Lightroom defaults to 40/1.0/25

Good point, because that is the wrong setting for Capture Sharpening in many cases.

A decent lens and good focus usually requires a radius of around 0.7-0.8 (because that's the measurable amount of optical+demosaic blur), unless a very narrow aperture was used, in which case a radius in de order of 1.0 or slightly more (to compensate for additional diffraction blur) would be optimal.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Capture sharpening in Lightroom
Post by: Zen8 on April 21, 2019, 12:53:35 pm
Where I feel LR excels is sharpening for export, especially for web/screen. It's my preferred way to sharpen for export for my web site or client's. For general Capture sharpening, I actually still prefer the sharpening in Capture One. Guess you can't have it all... Most other aspects of LR are easier and more straightforward, not to mention MUCH better custom camera profiles I create.

I tried the Capture One trial twice and worked all the sharpening phases including Structure, etc. It has been over 6 months since the last time so I have forgotten some of the details. Personally I find LR gives me results with extreme crops. I'm a big fan of the export process and I also have PK Sharpener but I seldom save finals using PS these days. I wanted C1 to blow me away but it just didn't.