More on sharpening in Lightroom versus Photoshop

[Johnny_Johnson]

Most posts in this thread didn’t address the other example I gave, of creating improved local contrast with USM set to amount of 25% (max) and radius of 50 pixels. This you simply cannot do in LR.

Hi Tony,

Jeff Schewe, in Camera Raw with Adobe CS3, says that the Clarity slider in Lightroom was developed to have a similar effect on an image as Local Contrast Enhancement using USM.  I'll admit that I haven't compared the two on the same image but you might give it a try and see what you think.

Later,
Johnny

[Josh-H]

Josh: I'd like to take you up on your offer of the sharpening presets you have set up. Do you need my email address?
Also, I'd like to say I appreciate the way this thread has been handled by everyone.
Regards, Tony

email me your email address - you can get my email from my website and I will send you the presets.

Cheers,

[Schewe]

Any thoughts?

If you are tying to correlate capture sharpening numbers in Lightroom/Camera Raw to Photoshop's USM, forget about it. The don't relate directly because LR/CR is doing it's work on luminance data only and in linear gamma. Photoshop can't do that (unless you create a linear working space) since Photoshop works in a baked gamma/color space. So, neither the amount nor the radius will be 1:1. LR/CR is "closest" to USM when the Detail slider is at 100, but even that's only "similar.

So, forget about what Canon says as it relates to LR/CR cause they don't have a clue how to use the Detail panel of LR/CR. Learn how to adjust the parameters in LR/CR to get an optimum capture sharpening (not sharpening for effect) so the image looks "good" at 100% zoom. Then let creative and output sharpening handle things the rest of the process.

As far as the midtone contrast in LR/CR Clarity, it's a hybrid between "local area contrast" such as when using a small amount/large radius and an Overlay/High Pass large radius effect. The effective radius in LR/CR is about 100 pixels (very wide to lessen artifacting) and the effect is rolled off the highlights and shadows to primarily impact midtones–hence the midtone contrast term.

[Tklimek]

Ah.....thanks Jeff....I think that is what several of us were trying to get across......but now this info comes from someone who knows just a tad bit more about sharpening than most of us....

;-)

Cheers...

Todd in Chicago

If you are tying to correlate capture sharpening numbers in Lightroom/Camera Raw to Photoshop's USM, forget about it. The don't relate directly because LR/CR is doing it's work on luminance data only and in linear gamma. Photoshop can't do that (unless you create a linear working space) since Photoshop works in a baked gamma/color space. So, neither the amount nor the radius will be 1:1. LR/CR is "closest" to USM when the Detail slider is at 100, but even that's only "similar.

So, forget about what Canon says as it relates to LR/CR cause they don't have a clue how to use the Detail panel of LR/CR. Learn how to adjust the parameters in LR/CR to get an optimum capture sharpening (not sharpening for effect) so the image looks "good" at 100% zoom. Then let creative and output sharpening handle things the rest of the process.

As far as the midtone contrast in LR/CR Clarity, it's a hybrid between "local area contrast" such as when using a small amount/large radius and an Overlay/High Pass large radius effect. The effective radius in LR/CR is about 100 pixels (very wide to lessen artifacting) and the effect is rolled off the highlights and shadows to primarily impact midtones–hence the midtone contrast term.

[tonybrown]

Hi Tony,

Jeff Schewe, in Camera Raw with Adobe CS3, says that the Clarity slider in Lightroom was developed to have a similar effect on an image as Local Contrast Enhancement using USM.  I'll admit that I haven't compared the two on the same image but you might give it a try and see what you think.

Later,
Johnny

Hi Johnny,
I want to thank you folks for your encouragement and patience. I took one of my favourite red squirrel raw photos and was able to improve in LR over what I had achieved in PS, comparable sharpness, lower background noise and good local contrast using 'clarity' (perhaps a little overdone). The print on an i9900 looks good also. See attached JPEG.
Thanks, Tony
[attachment=12764:Red_Squi..._08R6131.jpg]