Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Jack Varney on October 30, 2007, 08:36:52 pm
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What is the consensus on which should be done first, "Capture Sharpening" or "Local Contrast Enhancement" (i.e. 20/5/0 USM).
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I thought most people just worked their way down the controls. So that would put the local contrast adjustment before the sharpening.
(This is assuming the local contrast is done in the RAW converter. Lightroom or ACR 4.2.)
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Thanks Dark Penguin, I will be doing the Local Contrast and Capture Sharpening in CS2.
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Capture Sharpening, if done correctly, is very gentle and a precursor for creative and output sharpening, if you sharpen using the PK logic or PKS itself. I do capture sharpening just after rendering the image from the raw converter. The real inter-play you need to be mindful of is that between local contrast enhancement (LCE) and output sharpening. The combination of the two, if either is overdone, can result in excessively "crinkly" images. But in general, one should use LCE for its intended purpose and if necessary fine tune Output Sharpening in light of the LCE usage. I do LCE using an Action I wrote of John Paul Caponigro's mid-tone high pass contrast enhancement technique (his technical paper is available free on his website once you sign-up). It sits on its own stamp-image layer, and I use PKS for Output Sharpening. This way I can control the strength of each by adjusting opacity, or by using layer masks for working on specific areas of the image.
Mark
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Thank you, Mark. I was concerned that the LCE might affect the edges to be capture sharpened or vise versa. I, too, have experimented with John Paul Caponigro's mid-tone high pass contrast enhancement technique, but only briefly so far. I need to spend more time with it.