USM - Beginner question?

[hank1105]

I shoot RAW all the time and have noticed many posts saying that RAW photos are usually soft, which mine are. I have Photoshop CS but have never tried USM to sharpen the pics, always confused the heck out of me. Does anyone have a 101 guide with a typical setting on how to do this? It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hank

[Scottes]

For a 640-800 pixel wide web image try a Radius of 0.6, a threshold of 0, and then adjust Amount until it looks OK. (Don't be surprised if it''s a large number, just move it until it looks OK.) Once it looks OK, try moving the Radius around a bit - anywhere from 0.3 to 0.8 depending on the image. Usually the finer the details (fur, feathers) the lower the number, but it's all a matter of taste and the specifics of the image. If this is a high ISO image try moving the Threshold to somehere around 1-3. The Amount will have to go up even more once the Threshold goes up.

For a print image, zoom to 50% and choose a Radius of somewhere between 1/100th and 1/200th of the print DPI. So for 300 DPI (which is very likely) choose somewhere between 1.5 and 3.0. Again Threshold 0 unless it's high ISO, and play with the amount until it looks good.

Watch out for Sharpening Artifacts which are usually halos around high-contrast lines and small spots which are too white. It's a very good idea to flip between the unsharpened and sharpened image to spot these things. If you have USM open just enable & disable preview. If you've already applied the sharpening just hit Ctrl-Z to flip back and forth.

If you're printing for the first time it's a good idea to try 3 different sharpening strengths and compare. So if my image looked good with an Amount of 250% then I'd also do one at 200% and another at 300% and then compare the 3. If you're looking to print a large print for the first time then it's a real good idea to crop out a 4x6 of an important section and try 3 different sharpen strengths and print the 3 4x6s for much less than the price of a 20x30. (And if you do this, try 3 different saturation levels too.)


Remember that sharpening is very subjective - it's difficult to be wrong, since it's what *you* like.

Also note that viewing distance plays a big part, too. A 4x6 that people will hold in their hand will look very different from a 20x30 which people will see from 6 or 8 feet away.

[hank1105]

Thanks Scottes, I will give that a try.

Hank

[gmitchel]

Hank:

Thare's a bunch of sharpening resources on my site: actions, learning gallery, tutorials, tips.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/TipOfTheWeek/2004NOV01/2004NOV01.htm
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/TipOfTheWeek/2004NOV29/2004NOV29.htm

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/LearningGalleries/SharpeningToolkit/SharpeningToolkit.htm

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/Tutorials/PutAFineEdgeOnYourSharpeningSkills.pdf

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/PhotoshopTools/TLRSharpeningToolkit.htm

Happy holidays!

Mitch

[F1_Fan]

I have Photoshop CS but have never tried USM to sharpen the pics, always confused the heck out of me. I haven't bothered to read the links in the post below so maybe I'm duplicating one of them... Canon DSLR images are soft by design (the AA filter that removes moire and corrects colour). Canon themselves almost insist that you apply USM to the images.

You can see the "consumer" effect in the 300D where the default (Parameter 1) settings apply in-camera sharpening yet the 10D is set for "0" sharpening by default.

Before applying USM, resize the image to the required size (USM should be your last step) then view an area at 100%. Over time you'll learn the right amount of sharpening... I'll usually use 200%/0.4/0 but every image is different.

[mr.photoguy]

Hank:

Thare's a bunch of sharpening resources on my site: actions, learning gallery, tutorials, tips.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/TipOfTheWeek/2004NOV01/2004NOV01.htm
http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/TipOfTheWeek/2004NOV29/2004NOV29.htm

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/LearningGalleries/SharpeningToolkit/SharpeningToolkit.htm

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/Tutorials/PutAFineEdgeOnYourSharpeningSkills.pdf

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/DigitalDarkroom/PhotoshopTools/TLRSharpeningToolkit.htm

Happy holidays!

Mitch
Thank you for the link Mitch.
It is very informative, and is what I was intending to look into. I always wanted to sharpen up my sharpening skills.

Have a happy holidays.