RAW Sharpening

[kthorn]

Hello everyone. I have a question regarding the amount of sharpening that needs to be done for acceptable 4X6 photos. If I understand correctly, any image shot in RAW format will not have any sharpening done to it. Is it necessary sharpen photos to get good-looking photos? If so, is there "standard" amount? And will I need to do this sharpening using DPP or Adobe? Thanks in advance for your help.

[BillyR]

Too many variables there to be able to give a stock answer. However, I've never seen an image yet that would not benfit from a certain amount of sharpening, whether originally shot in RAW or not, as the last step in PP. The amount will depend upon how well the image was focused in the first place, how much it was resized, etc. You'll have to let your eyeballs be the judge.

Most photographers, including me, believe that if you're printing the image on an inkjet printer it should be sharpened until it looks slightly oversharp on your screen as the final step.

[kthorn]

Thanks. Sorry about the lack of detail. I'm just overwhelmed by all of the PP tutorials and so forth.

Another question. When I open a RAW file in DPP I see the settings already there, i.e. the contrast and sharpening sliders in position as shot. If I convert the file to jpg will the resulting image look the same as the jpg out of camera?

[61ache]

Thanks. Sorry about the lack of detail. I'm just overwhelmed by all of the PP tutorials and so forth.

Another question. When I open a RAW file in DPP I see the settings already there, i.e. the contrast and sharpening sliders in position as shot. If I convert the file to jpg will the resulting image look the same as the jpg out of camera?

That is the goal but why? Only reason to convert to jpeg is for size issues. Jpeg compresses the image and therefore will always create a certain amount of compression loss. If you shoot in RAW why not back up your images to disks etc and save in TIFF where there will be no compression loss? Just my thoughts...

Here's a great technique for sharpening that I use all the time. Can be done on either CS2 or The Gimp. Anything with layers and masks.

http://www.gimpguru.org/Tutorials/SmartSharpening2/