Does flickr sharpen images?

[danielklaer]

So I just discovered that when exporting from lightroom you can select to sharpen for screen/matt paper etc during export. I have never done this and immediately thought perhaps all my uploaded images were not as good as they could be. I exported with and without sharpening and sure enough it looked much better when 'sharpened for screen'. I then compared both these images to the same image at the same size uploaded to flickr. The one on flickr more closely resembled the image that was sharpened on export despite the fact that I actually uploaded a non sharpened version.


So my questions.
1) Do you sharpen for screen etc when exporting from lightroom. Why/why not?

2) Does flickr sharpen images?

Thank you in advance.

Dan.

 

[danielklaer]

OK researching it it seems like flickr does indeed sharpen images. This I never knew.

So just the one question now, do you sharpen for screen when exporting from lr?

 

[KmH]

Only when the output is intended for electronic display.

I do not think Flickr does any sharpening. I also pan Flickr because they strip image metadata.

Images destined for printing can usually handle more sharpening than images destined for electronic display.
But, sharpening is a pretty complex subject and image content, edge frequency in particular, has a lot to do with what kind and how much sharpening can be applied to a specific photo.

If you would like to learn more about the details, the authors of this book are the guys that wrote the software that does the sharpening in LR - Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

 

[Overread]

Flickr only sharpens when it performs its automatic resizing, the original size of the uploaded version is no sharpened by flickr in any way. As such one should always sharpen after resizing for the medium you're going to display in - so if uploading to the net I'd resize to 1000 pixels on the longest side - sharpen and then upload, knowing that the size I'm most likely going to want to use is sharpened exactly how I like it.

Note that flickr only strips meta data from the resized versions that it makes, the original uploaded version retains meta-data - furthermore if you link to the flickr page itself for the photo that also displays the meta-data (if you can find it through all their interface design changes )

 

[The_Traveler]

What he said^

The absolute best and only way to ensure that your images are as sharp on viewers' browser as they are for you when you upload them to a host is to resize and sharpen them to display size before uploading them.

Never depend on the hosting service to resize your images.

All that stuff about various hosting sites degrading them is just crap. They save them at upload size and then resize on request and that's where the problem lies.
In my experience, those who cry about bad results from hosting sites are expecting them to do things they aren't optimized for.

 

[KmH]

The way Yahoo (Flickr) handles metadata by it only being available on the Flickr web site means metadata CMI (Copyright Management Information) isn't present when the image is displayed elsewhere on the Internet.

Google and Microsoft are also part of the problem

An Open Letter to Google and Microsoft | Photo Attorney

 

[danielklaer]

Thank you very much for the info guys. I guess I'll go through and re-export everything for the right format when I do a website. I'll just have to let the flickr stuff go
Interesting Keith. I have a tiny watermark with reference to it being copyright but of course people can just crop that. Good to know.
Thanks again.
Dan