Sharp

[Mircula]

Hey,


I was wondering what programs you guys use for sharpening.
I've heard that the one inside lightroom 2 is not the best.

I do not have photoshop and do all my pp in lightroom. Are there any 3rd party programs or plugins which do a better job than lightroom itself?

I could get photoshop, but do not really feel the need as there are so many options in lightroom 2 already and probably more coming in lighrtoom 3 anyway.


Thanks!



Cheers,

Mirc

[coolie21]

I don't use lightroom but apply minimal sharpening in Aperture, which should be similar to LR. I wouldn't have thought you would need a separate sharpening program. If I want differential sharpening (eg eyes only) I would use photoshop. Elements would be a cheaper alternative, would give you layer masks etc for other PP effects
:)

[ricktas]

Lots of information about this in our Tutorials Forum, in the sharpening tutorial : http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?t=8579. There are many varied ways to achieve sharpening in all the different software packages available. Do a google on "Lightroom Sharpening Preset"

[campo]

I'm a lightroom / CS4 user and i've tried various techniques in photoshop and then compared with the LR sharpening. On quite a few occasions, I've noticed that the difference is minimal when viewing photos at web resolutions etc (eg. 800x600).

In LR I hold down the alt key and move either or the bottom 2 sliders (radius and masking i think?) and see where the sharpening is going to be applied. I find this particularly useful as sometimes all you need is the edges sharpened a bit more and leave the rest alone.

There are plenty of standalone products available but I'm yet to invest in them. If I was to invest in a product it would probably be the "Magic Sharp" photoshop action by Kevin Kubota...a lot of pros seem to like this and the results are pretty awesome. Jasmine Star (http://www.jasminestarblog.com/) is US based photographer that uses it, her pics are always clean and sharp. One of her recent weddings posts is a good example of this: http://www.jasminestarblog.com/index.cfm?postID=717&ebell-long-beach-wedding-cindy-jelani

[Miaow]

One called Focal blade is pretty good also :)

[kiwi]

Simple solution for LR

Realise that the sharpening in LR is capture sharpening - read about this in Kelby's book and plenty of googling will help

Output sharpening is then applied when you export or print - it's only after that process that the full extent of sharpening is apparent

BEST thing you can do is download and install LR/Mogrify, it's donationware, so cheap as

It has MUCH better USM style export sharpening that I find works really well

Apparently (and not fully implemented in the Beta) is much better capture sharpening in LR 3

[Mircula]

Thank you people.

I guess i go with kiwis tips as i am not really able to spend much money on 3rd party stand alone applications at the moment.


Cheers,

Mirc

[Mircula]

hi,

I now installed mogrify....

How do i find out how much output sharpening i have to do? With or without mogrify?

Is there any kind of preview? How do you determine what image to sharpen a lot and which ones just a little?

What difference does it make if I wanna print it or just want to have it as a jpeg on the computer or print it later from the jpg?


Thank you :) !!!!

Edit:

Another thing i was wondering....How do i get the best print result if i want to print some pictures in a photo shop? Should i give them the jpeg or the raw files or what is the best to save as much detail and iq as possible?

What is your workflow to get a picture out of lightroom or photoshop and into the shop who will print the image?

thanks again :)

[kiwi]

You csnt preview LR/Mogrify sharpening, you have to look at the resultant JPEG and reexport if required

You usually apply a little bit more sharpening to photos for the web, rather than printing. I dont.

If you are going to print, fisrt crop to the print size, eg 8x10 ratio then burn a full size jpeg from within LR - I dont go through LR/Mogrify in this case

[victorblagovici]

I use Gimp2, is free.