Quote:

"I typically sharpen for print tiffs three times during the workflow. I sharpen for the web jpgs once only, and then usually not globally but selectively using a sharpening brush."

Hey Buddy,

Can you give an example of when you would sharpen an image like this? I typically only sharpen once - in the Raw file when I am making the conversion in Capture One. I try to not sharpen the image again.

Sometimes, for web files, I will add a small amount of USM to pull out detail in fur, eyes, etc....

James



James,

Excuse me if I jump in here. I too am also curious about Buddy sharpening 3 times. In my work flow I use Nikon Capture NX for raw conversion and they recommend a 2 step sharpening. One light sharpening at the conversion to compensate for the AA filter in Nikon cameras which is often pretty conservative (D200, D2X). They call this the "capture" sharpening. The second sharpening comes after the image is PP'd (levels, NR, saturation) and then final sharpening is done for output, web or printing. For the web I go straight to a jpeg and for printing to a Tiff. There is only one other type of sharpening I do during PP which is selective sharpening using a sharpening "brush" to hit certain areas I would like to accentuate like eyes. So you could say I do 2 and half steps in PP.

There is one more place I sharpen and that is if I downsize for the web. I use PSPXI for my bit map editor and when I downsize signigicantly I usually find that there is a softening of the image. I often apply just a tad of USM on the final image. So for web images I do use 3 steps many times and if I do selective sharpening then I guess you could say 3 and half steps.

This is my "normal" work flow and I'm not going to get into when I need to do bit map editing (layers, blending, etc) in PSP and use only a capture sharpened tiff converted from NX as the starting point.

Sharpening is probably one of the most controversial issues out there and it is truly amazing to me the schemes and software out thery available to handle it.

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