Sharpening

[jsfpa]

Is there a secret to knowing how much sharpening is enough or to much. I'm using Apple's Aperture to do my raw processing. Anybody have any advice?

Thanks

[Scottes]

It's very subjective. So it's how much you like or not.

I like to sharpen and then keep hitting Control-Z which will undo and redo. Flipping back and forth like this will quickly point out the differences, and will help you find sharpening flaws and artifacts.

Or walk away for a few minutes. read the forum or something, and then go back to the pic. Does it still look right?

Look for sharpening flaws - haloes, blown-out highlights, etc. Zoom in to 200% and take a look at key areas.

Click on Edit... Fade Sharpening. Drop it down to 70% and let go. How's it look then? Go back to 100% - better or worse?

Compare your sharpening to other similar pics. How does it compare?

As a last resort, post it here and ask how it looks. I say "as a last resort" because in the end you need to train your eyes on your work. You need to gain the experience of judging sharpening using the knowledge of how you did it.

Also, if you post it here you will get a LOT of opinions - because sharpening is very subjective.

And if you want a TON of opinions then post an unsharpened version along with the sharpened version, and list how you did the sharpening. Then a bunch of us will swoop down with our opinions and methods of how we would have sharpened it... And that's a freaking nightmare, because sharpening is very subjective and there are many many ways to sharpen an image. IMHO it's best to learn one way for each type of photo, and keep sharpening that way until you start to see the flaws in your sharpening. Then you'll want to learn a better way to sharpen that type of photo, and you'll be at a point were you'll understand why the flaw occurred, and you'll understand why you're correcting it, and you'll understand quicker why a different way make it better.