Following is one of my somewhat common approaches to sharpening a TIFF file for print in three stages. The first time I sharpen is during noise reduction (I use Noise Ninja). Digital noise typically resides in the blue channel and removing it softens detail a little. I therefore first sharpen the blue channel.

Since color, tone, exposure, shadow and contrast issues were dealt with in Camera Raw prior to conversion, I move from noise reduction to layers, filters etc. - whatever is required to move the image closer to a final version. After merging layers I often make a duplicate layer, change to luminosity, apply smart sharpen with settings that can vary based on the image, then reduce opacity, often to as low as 10%.

Finally, after merging the sharpened layer, soft proofing and doing whatever else is needed I will often burn and dodge locally to enhance the critical areas of contrast and finish by locally sharpening those critical areas with a brush at very low settings (maybe 5 hardness and 5-10 strength).

I never sharpen very much at any given time. If I'm working on an image that will need a lot of contrast and sharpening work I'll sometimes duplicate the background layer twice, use the high pass filter on one layer then switch to overlay and reduce opacity to approx. 10. Then I will take the second duplicated layer, move it to the top, desaturate it and switch to hard light, again reducing to 10 or so. This is a common (for me) alternative sharpening method. There are many others of course like lab sharpening, plug ins (Intellisharpen is one I use - per Fred Miranda) and of course others.

Hope this makes sense. In no way do I consider myself an expert in this area - just a pilgrim on the path.

Good stuff, guys. Lots of information here. Keep it coming.

In a thread about sharpening, I must admit to some surprise to seeing no mention of Bruce Fraser's Real World Image Sharpening book, where he describes the 3 stage sharpening protocol very clearly. Capture sharpening to remove the effects of digitizing and anti-aliasing; creative sharpening to emphasize certain parts of the image (soften skin, sharpen eyes, add local contrast, etc); and finally, output sharpening for your specific media. Bruce has calculated the maximum amount of sharpening to can apply to get halos to exist just below the threshold of visibility, which means that your image is as sharp as it can be without looking "digital" ...

I find this prototol really changes the way you approach sharpening. Nothing ever feels random about the process, especially if you use PKSharpener from Pixel Genius. This plugin implements all the different options in Bruce's book.

What I do to handle different media from the same image is to save an intermediate version with all my edits, then make two version ... one for the web, which is output sharpened at 800px, wide, medium, narrow or superfine edges depending on the subject; and one for the size of print, say 12x18 upsized to 300ppi then sharpened using the contone (continuous tones) setting for 300ppi glossy. Matte uses slightly more sharpening because ink tends to bleed more on matte surfaces.

I've found that my prints look consistently sharp and my web images have stopped looking over sharpened.

For upsizing, I use the excellent DOP_Upsizing automation plugin that implements a form of stepped bicubic with intermediate sharpening. It retains detail better than any other method I've used. There is an interesting companion article on that site to go with this (free) plugin. Digital Outback Photo by the way.

Hope that's of interest to some.

Kim,
I use PKSharpener as well and find the 3-stage sharpening technique works very well with RAW files which is what I shoot primarily. The plug-in's sharpening brushes and the flexibility to use luminance or high pass sharpening at different levels gives a tremendous amount of flexibility with different subject matter of different contrast ratios.

And I like the fact that you can sharpen the output for whatever device you're using whether it's my Epson 1800 or MPIX's photo output.

On the other hand, I've been testing CS3 and its implementation of Smart Sharpening is pretty good especially if you don't mind fading it out some at 200% view to remove the "grain".

I find that you have to use your own judgment about sharpening -- some subject matter demands a lot of it; some requires only judicious applications of it. Which is why I like PKSharpener because it gives you three levels of sharpening and lets you see what you're getting at each level.

As for upsizing, I seldom print larger than 8X10 and usually don't have to do any interpolation from my original files and, when I do, I find that PhotoShop's Bicubic Smooth does just fine. But I don't make large prints very often so I can't comment on how well it works for major resizing.

Jim

In reacting to all these posts:

1. Generally I have my Oly E-510 set to sharpen by 1 step, as it moves me that much closer to the the finished Photoshop sharpening. I find that the camera's normal setting is a bit soft for my taste.

2. I have yet to develop a sophisticated sharpening process (and would appreciate any tips). I just set PS's Unsharp Masking control to 10%, enlarge the image to 100% and "slowly creep up on it," monitoring sharp-edges in the image. When they just begin to halo, I go back one step, or two steps and use the Sharpen Edge control if that makes it look good.

3. When I resize down I make another copy of the image and resharpen, since every time I size down an image it seems to grow less sharp.

Leonard

Leonard,
sounds like you're shooting jpegs and letting the camera's processor apply some sharpening before you get the image into PS. I shoot RAW almost exclusively for my professional jobs and so the PK Sharpener's first step essentially matches what you're getting from the camera's processor. As you know, RAW files are not processed in camera at all.

While I've use PS's unsharp mask with good success -- and the newer versions in Smart Sharpen -- I find the levels and types of sharpening available in PK Sharpener to have much more flexibility and control. Again, I can always fade down any filter but the ability to sharpen just edges or just luminance is really very helpful. And they have a couple of sharpening algorithms which they call Super Sharpen 1 through 4 which really snap things up. They are usually much too aggressive for me but they are there for the occasional macro shot that just can't be too sharp.

When I process a show, I'll play around with the first few images until I get the look I want and then use that procedure for the rest of the images from that show. So the first two or 3 images might take 10 minutes each to get processed but the rest can be done in less than 5 each. Which really helps when you're processing several hundred images!

If you like what you're getting using PS only, then go with it. If you'd like to check out other sharpening software, look at PK Sharpener, Nik and others -- most offer free downloads and trial periods -- and see if they produce better results for you.

Cheers,

Jim

Now that I'm using NikSharpen, it's a whole new ballgame. This plug-in seems to "co-opt" PS's sharpening tools in a way that presents me with needle-sharp images without any haloing. It can sharpen globally or selectively. I use this procedure pretty much exclusively now, and I have all but abandoned Unsharp Mask, Smart Sharpen, Sharpen Edges, etc. I mean, why muck around with complicated time-consuming operations when it can be done faster and better some other way?

One "problem" however: it takes print size and viewing distance into consideration, so that means I must make copies of unsharpened/uncropped prints (taking up yet more space) for various size prints and also for images used exclusively on the web. So my workflow has become more complicated. But the finished images are worth it!

Leonard

Reading the posts above, and now that I'm learning to use NikSharpen, I see that with the ability to selectively sharpen comes a whole new factor to contemplate when editing: what areas of an image would benefit from more sharpening, and by how much? "Automatic knee-jerk" global sharpening now seems to me to be a bit heavy-handed in many applications. Offhand, I would tend to give the eyes and mouth (in portraits) more sharpening. In nature images, I think I'd use sharpening and blurring to guide the viewer's eyes to the parts of the image I'd want to emphasize. Thoughts, reactions?

Cheers,

Leonard

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You can always sharpen on a duplicate layer, apply a mask and paint out the areas you don't want sharp. Which, is what I do fairly often