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Author Topic: Lightroom and Halftone  (Read 12346 times)

kpdesigns492

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Lightroom and Halftone
« on: January 08, 2012, 10:50:51 pm »

I'd like to finish off a photo book I've been working on, but I'm undecided about how to output sharpen all of my images.  Can I use the output sharpen option in Lightroom? Many say that this is only optimized for inkjet output though and I would be printing on an HP Indigo. Do I need to buy Nik Sharpener? Any opinions on this would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
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luxborealis

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2012, 11:02:06 pm »

While this is not an area of specific expertise, I can comment from my personal experience with printing to halftone processes for Apple's book products (from iPhoto and Aperture).

In Lightroom, I do my usual process sharpening then "Export" the photos as jpegs with Output Sharpening set to Glossy paper - Standard. I then input them into iPhoto or Aperture and create the book, resizing photos as is needed. Excellent results every time.

My guess is (and experts please correct me if I'm wrong), that with half-tone printing, sharpening is not as critical as it is for inkjet printing at 360ppi on for e.g. fine art paper with an Epson 3880.
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Schewe

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2012, 12:23:47 am »

My guess is (and experts please correct me if I'm wrong), that with half-tone printing, sharpening is not as critical as it is for inkjet printing at 360ppi on for e.g. fine art paper with an Epson 3880.

And that guess would be incorrect...150 LPI halftone sharpening is not the same as output sharpening for inkjet. If you want to get a solution specifically designed for halftone output, check out PhotoKit Sharpener 2 which has routines specifically designed for halftone output at various line screens. Yes, you can apply output sharpening in Lightroom–which was designed for inkjet or screen–but it ain't "optimal" for halftone. I know because Adobe licensed the output sharpening from PhotoKit Sharpener only for inkjet and screen, not our halftone sharpening. And yes, correct output sharpening for halftone is JUST as critical for halftones as it is for inkjet. Why would you think it wouldn't be?

Note, I'm a member of PixelGenius which developer PhotoKit Sharpener and worked with Adobe to include our sharpening routines for inkjet and screen into Lightroom and Camera Raw. So, you might consider my opinion biased, but I do know a thing or two about sharpening since I kinda wrote the book about it, see: Real World Image Sharpening.
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kpdesigns492

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2012, 09:06:19 am »

Thanks for the informative response. I guess I'll be purchasing Photokit Sharpener! Seems so annoying that LR doesn't have this feature built in already. Maybe in the future?
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luxborealis

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2012, 09:13:32 am »

Thanks for clarifying Jeff. Having people like you on this forum - those who know the inner workings of these apps - is what makes it so valuable so that guys like me don't keep perpetuating myths. Your input is much appreciated.
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2012, 12:25:23 pm »

Terry, may I give some thoughts on this from my experiences of testing sharpening and resizing for photo books on an HP Indigo used by Blurb.

Firstly before worrying about sharpening, getting the resizing of images correct is crucial to optimising image quality. Don't let book making software like Blurb's Booksmart or bookify resize images. Either use Photoshop or Lightroom to get the images the exact pixel dimensions of the place holders for them, then sharpen.

Photokit sharpener is the gold standard of sharpening tools, but the differences between inkjet and halftone sharpening are very subtle and you'd be lucky to see any difference between the two methods in a Book from an HP Indigo. So if I was outputting the final sized images from LR I'd just use the standard inkjet sharpening.

After several tests my preferred workflow is using the PDF to book system.
I use InDesign to layout the book and use full resolution 8bit TIFFs with capture sharpening and no output sharpening in the layout. Once the layout is finalised I use an InDesign script(https://sites.google.com/a/lapay.biz/www/scr1-showimageproperties2) that takes all the images in the book and uses Photoshop to perfectly resize the TIFFs to the correct place holder dimensions and create a new book including the new images. It's then possible to run a Photoshop action to sharpen all the new final images with Photokit sharpener.
This workflow avoids having to go through each image and individually resize and sharpen it. I guess that assumes you won't want everything the same size on each page, so YMMV.

Paul

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kpdesigns492

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2012, 12:35:44 pm »

Hi Paul. If I was printing a book at 250 ppi on an HP Indigo on matte paper what settings would you use for photo kit?
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kpdesigns492

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2012, 12:39:04 pm »

On an HP Indigo would using photo kit yield more optimal results compared to the LR output sharpening for inkjet?
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2012, 12:48:31 pm »

Jeff would be expert for advice on this, but I think the correct setting is 120lpi coated 240ppi.

As I said before, I think PS & PKS is the optimal workflow, but I don't think you'd see any difference between that and the Lightroom route in practice.
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kpdesigns492

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2012, 12:55:49 pm »

I am a little concerned that using PKS would not yield vastly different results compared to LR3. I actually did send a few test pages in with PKS and the matte low setting from LR3. I thought the images looked a little more pleasing from LR3.  But perhaps I was misusing PKS and needed to scale back the sharpening?
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2012, 01:46:25 pm »

I am a little concerned that using PKS would not yield vastly different results compared to LR3.
It shouldn't come as a surprise as the core code for LR was bought(licensed?) from Pixelgenius who make PKS, ie the sharpening in LR is just the same, just with less options.

If you compare a file at 100%, first sharpening with halftone sharpening and then the same with inkjet sharpening for similar DPIs you'll hardly see any difference.
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luxborealis

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2012, 02:32:49 pm »

That was my comment above on January 8th - but Jeff Schewe who helped developed both products, says differently.
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2012, 03:42:34 pm »

but Jeff Schewe who helped developed both products, says differently.
I'm sure he would.
I just look at the results and report what I see.
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Schewe

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2012, 10:40:43 pm »

That was my comment above on January 8th - but Jeff Schewe who helped developed both products, says differently.

Oh, there's a difference...otherwise we wouldn't have spent the time and energy to create separate sharpening routines. Just understand that you simply can't accurately judge image sharpening and detail on a display. If sending 300PPI for 150 LPI screening, a display (assuming about 100PPI display resolution) will be 3x the size at 100% the the final halftone output. If you zoom out to 50%, you'll be looking at an image on the display that is 1/3 the resolution of the image. The ONLY way to judge the results is to print them and compare. And that's exactly what we did when Bruce Fraser designed the sharpening routines.

Will inkjet sharpening be at least a help? Yes...but the inkjet sharpening is designed for an error diffusion dither not a halftone dot.
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #14 on: January 10, 2012, 05:25:14 am »

The ONLY way to judge the results is to print them and compare.

Completely agree and have done exactly that.
Looking at the differences between the two types of sharpening on screen gives an indication of how little difference there may be when finally output.
Quote
Will inkjet sharpening be at least a help? Yes...but the inkjet sharpening is designed for an error diffusion dither not a halftone dot.
The next question is; can you see the difference on HP Indigo output? yes........just..........if you use a magnifying glass and know what to look for.

Yes, PKS2 is the optimal solution, but the difference between it's output for inkjet in LR and a "perfect" halftone file from PS is not worth overly obsessing about in practice.



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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #15 on: January 10, 2012, 01:24:16 pm »

Curious to note that the new books module in LR4 beta has no sharpening options at all.
Is it happening automatically behind the scenes ? or just an omission ?
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #16 on: January 10, 2012, 02:11:55 pm »

Curious to note that the new books module in LR4 beta has no sharpening options at all.
Is it happening automatically behind the scenes ? or just an omission ?

It’s there, behind the scenes. It uses a Med Glossy setting. If you export to PDF, you then get an option.
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Rhossydd

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #17 on: January 10, 2012, 03:04:27 pm »

It’s there, behind the scenes. It uses a Med Glossy setting. If you export to PDF, you then get an option.
Ta, found it now.
Can you confirm if that is an optimised sharpening for halftone at the appropriate resolution for the book printers (Blurb, My Publisher etc)?
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digitaldog

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Re: Lightroom and Halftone
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2012, 03:15:42 pm »

Can you confirm if that is an optimised sharpening for halftone at the appropriate resolution for the book printers (Blurb, My Publisher etc)?

Alas, my understanding is it is not optimized for halftone but Jeff probably has more inside info than I. I think it is the ink jet settings.
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