Why are my sharp pictures turning soft?

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

I have been taking photographs in RAW for a while now and getting wonderful results.

As I get more experienced, I am having to edit/process less and less. Today all my images required very little editing or sharpening, and no cropping so I am very happy.

The problem is that although the RAW looks lovely and sharp, when I convert to JPG, they are all turning soft!

Anyone tell me why this is so?

I am processing in Canon Digital Photo Professional 2.2, which processes the RAW then you can convert and save to JPG.

Baz.

[egordon99]

Examples? Can you do a screencapture of a "raw" image in DPP when it's sharp? Then post a converted JPG that is soft?

I use Lightroom and I don't have any problems with the sharpness of my images after I convert to JPG.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

Examples? Can you do a screencapture of a "raw" image in DPP when it's sharp? Then post a converted JPG that is soft?

I use Lightroom and I don't have any problems with the sharpness of my images after I convert to JPG.
Sure. Here you go. What say you?

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

Obviously a JPG from a screen print suffers loss as well, but I can tell you the image is a LOT sharper before conversion and resizing.

[anj273]

I haven't used Canon Digital Photo Professional 2.2, but have you checked your export settings? Suff like quality, sharpening and what-have-you?

A screen cap of the settings would help :)

[egordon99]

You need to google "Output sharpening"

I like Lightroom because it takes care of this for you when you export to JPG.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

I haven't used Canon Digital Photo Professional 2.2, but have you checked your export settings? Suff like quality, sharpening and what-have-you?

A screen cap of the settings would help :)
Here you go. Are the settings correct?

[anj273]

Well, it would seem so. Was hoping there was some settings for sharpening and/or filtering... Truthfully I'm at a loss here. I'm afraid the only advice I can give you, is to use another JPG converter... :(

Perhaps somebody who knows Digital Photo Professional may be able to offer you some better help.

[Big K]

It's possible that it is the image viewer you are using to view the jpegs. Many programs will make things look soft when you are viewing them at odd percentages. 100% is always a safe one but typically 50%, 25% or even splits like that will appear sharper than say 38.4%, etc. Try zooming the image in your viewer to 100% and compare it to a 100% zoom in DPP and see if there is still a noticeable difference.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

In regards to resizing for the web and THEN sharpening, I think I've got it.

What do you think of the image below, 800 pixels high by 533 wide? Once I resized it in PSE6, I then sharpened it.

http://i42.tinypic.com/34j4wvs.jpg

[Stealthy Ninja]

^^^ Looks over-sharpened to me. You're starting to get sharpening artifacts.

[A.S.I.G.N. Observatory]

^^^ Looks over-sharpened to me. You're starting to get sharpening artifacts.

Probably yes, but the point is I found it and it worked! Now to practice the subtleties!

Thanks for all your help folks.

Baz.

[Stealthy Ninja]

True. ;)

[Laffctx]

I find that after PP I will need to go back to the JPG and give it a good once over to see if any sharpness is lost and just give it a little nudge now and then depending on the image.

[kent andersen]

I save the picture as Tiff in DPP and that helps. I have sharpening at 0 in DPP, and do all sharpening in Gimp afther all the other stuff has been done. Then I save it as Jpeg.

The only thing I do in DPP is whitebalance and adjusting brightnes.