How much sharpening do you do in post?

[Josh66]

Often my photos aren't as sharp as I think they should be, especially after seeing what everyone posts on here...lol.

I shoot RAW and convert with Canon's DPP. I don't do much sharpening in DPP, maybe 75% of the time I don't even touch the sharpening slider. I'm always worried about overdoing it, so I barely touch it so I know I'm not overdoing it - if that makes sense.

Is that what is making my pictures less sharp than I expect, or am I just expecting too much? Most of the time I don't see any reason why the pictures in question shouldn't be sharp - focus is good, shutter speed was fast enough to eliminate any movement, aperture is good (stopped down a little, but not too much), but it still isn't as sharp as what I see on here.

I admit that I'm pretty new when it comes to editing, so I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing. Is it just the editing that's causing this, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Overread]

I don't use the sharpening slider - I find you get much better results using the Unsharpen mask (no I am not kidding it really does sharpen images)

ALso when I resize a shot say its 3800pixels on the long side. First I unsharpen - how much varies on the shot. Then I resize to 2000 and unsharpen again - though to a lesser extend (something between 50 and 100% often). Then I resize to 1000 and do the same again.
The reason is when you resize a shot you lose some detail in it, resize by a long way and you lose a lot of detials - so its better to use a step resizing method for web posting

 

[Iron Flatline]

I know this very expensive for amateurs, but if you're serious about printing, don't just spend your money on fancy lenses...

...buy this:

Nik Sharpener Pro.

You apply it selectively in form of a mask to only the areas you wanted to sharpen... like the eyes, or the edge of a building. Before you apply it, you set lots of parameters like viewing distance, print size (up to "side-of-building"), print media, and resolution. You can even choose to just sharpens certain color ranges.

I do not print without it, best thing I ever bought.

 

[JerryPH]

I know this very expensive for amateurs, but if you're serious about printing, don't just spend your money on fancy lenses...buy this: Nik Sharpener Pro.

I demoed it and ended up purchasing it myself. If you understand how to exploit it's strengths (and it is a very powerful little tool), it does some amazing things.

I don't find the need to use it all the time, but if I am serious about getting the most from the pic I am working on, this is the #1 tool I use.

My #2 tool is the sharpness slider in Adobe Camera RAW. It globally sharpens the pic, and does an excellent job.

My #3 choice is the smart sharpener in CS3.

Like all things in life, too much of anything is not good and I try not to go nuts with the sliders.

 

[rmh159]

...buy this:

Nik Sharpener Pro.

Do you need the current version of PS for this? The site didn't specify.

 

[JerryPH]

It works in CS2 and CS3 as far as I know.

 

[Efergoh]

For me it depends on the size of the print I'm making.
Most often, I don't sharpen much, but if I am making a print larger than 20x30, it has to be done.

I recently made a 5ft tall print of a portrait that was shot with a 10.2Mp camera....I sharpened the pi$$ out of it, and I still cringe when folks get closer than a foot away from it...

 

[Josh66]

Are there any good stand-alone programs, or are they all Photoshop filters/plug-ins?

At the moment all I have on here is GIMP. Somewhere around here I have PS Elements 4 - new computer and I can't find a lot of my software CDs...

 

[usayit]

A few years ago, my professor shared this with me.... I'm sure it is not as effective as the full blown products but you can use the technique for free. I found it to be less aggressive than plain jane PS filters and provides much more control over the areas being unsharpen-masked.

) Create a new channel
) Copy the entire photo to the new channel ( Select all , Copy , Paste )
) Apply Filter->Stylize->Find edges
) Adjust Levels on the channel. The black area of the photo will be the areas where unsharpen mask filter will be applied.
) Select -> Load selection -> Alpha 1 (you might require to inverse select)
) Apply unsharp mask -> .3 at 500%
) Apply unsharp mask -> .8 at 200%
) Deselect

Feel free to experiment and give me feedback/pointers if you find improvements to those steps. Oh yeh... forgot to mention that the amount of sharpening is pretty much a trail and error for me. It is also heavily dependent on the size of the destination print.

 

[Iron Flatline]

Nik Sharpener works with older PS versions.

 

[craig]

I use lightroom's sharpening or USM in CS2. For newspaper work I "sharpen 'till it hurts" for magazines and my own prints I am a little more selective. Keep in mind that USM in Photoshop affects the contrast of the image. Another key is too sharpen the image while viewing at 100% or greater.

Love & Bass

 

[Garbz]

Wow Iron Flatline, I just tried the demo of this and it works wonderfully. I couldn't justify buying it personally, but still works fantastically.

Now if only I can figure out how to replicate this using unsharp mask

 

[JerryPH]

Not even if they gave you a 50% discount, Chris?

From now till June 30th... it's 1/2 price!! If someone was on the fence with this product... NOW is the time to get it. As for me, I paid full boat, but even as an amater, considering how and what it does, I found it expensive but worth it.

http://www.niksoftware.com/sharpenerpro/usa/entry.php?

Click the icon for their 50% off speical, if interested.

 

[rmh159]

Not even if they gave you a 50% discount, Chris?

From now till June 30th... it's 1/2 price!! If someone was on the fence with this product... NOW is the time to get it. As for me, I paid full boat, but even as an amater, considering how and what it does, I found it expensive but worth it.

http://www.niksoftware.com/sharpenerpro/usa/entry.php?

Click the icon for their 50% off speical, if interested.

I feel my arm being twisted... I'll check it out tonite and likely buy it. Hopefully it doesn't require too much disc space... my PC has one foot in the grave and I'm hoping to get another year out of it before I put the other foot in.

 

[whistule]

I like the fact that nik sharpener breaks it down to tangible variables. Do you end up with several different nik layers - one for each PP technique e.g. one for display, one for your printer, one for the lab.

Also, would you typically sharpen in one stage or selectively? I've found that nik sharpener seems to be a lot more forgiving when generally sharpening an image but you could get the same results with the inbuilt photoshop unsharp mask filter if you apply it selectively.