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Lately I have noticed a lot of good photos that I think are being less than they could be by oversharpening. When a photo is oversharpened, it takes on an artificial and plastic look, not something you would see with your own eyes if you were there. Has anybody else noticed this or is it just me?



You have touched upon an issue that drives me crazy when I'm post processing. I guess I agree with Jim about not being restricted to the sharpness of film or the lens when the digital image can reveal more detail through sharpening. With just about every image I always am torn about just how much to sharpen it. Again I agree with Jim that for portraits and subjects, I try not to sharpen too much. With landscapes, I try to sharpen to what my eye remembers, or at least what I want it to remember.

The other issue I have with sharpness is the effects when downsizing for the web. My native dimensions are 3904x2616 pixels and I usally try to limit the height of web posted photo to 600 pixels. This means I'm usually downsizing about 3-4 fold. I have found that the algorithm used to downsize can really effect sharpness. For example, I have found that bicubic which is so good for upsizing, is terrible for downsizing. I usually find that when I downsize, I often have to sharpen just a little and at low resolution, sharpening effects have greater effects making it tricky. One thing I never do is use an image prepped for printing on the web. More sharpening is definitely needed for printing and they look oversharpened on the web.

Having said all this, I have to admit that I think I have developed a liking for sharper images and I may be guilty at times of "over" sharpening at times.

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