Sharpening in Lightroom 4 Question

I am trialing LR 4 right now and I'm really enjoying it's features. But I noticed something last night...I was going to view (in Windows 8) one of the images I had worked on and saved as a jpeg but when I opened it it looked way over-sharpened. I went back to the image in LR but it looked fine there.

What's happening here?

Thanks!

Just before you export, the settings panel has an option for sharpening for web viewing, print etc. Is yours set to something that you don't want?

It is important to get the correct settings on the export page but after testing all the options I never had a way over-sharpened image but that is subjective. Perhaps a sample? That would the members trouble shoot.

Yes the export dialogue has a few settings for output sharpening. You have the choice for screen and print. In the print options you have the choice for glossy or matt paper. You then have three sharpness levels available for each setting, Low, Normal and High IIRC. All of these are reasonably self explanatory. There is one other setting that affects the level of sharpening that will be applied, and that is the output resolution. Lightroom takes account of the output resolution that has been set, so if printing you would want to use whatever resolution the printer will be using. When it comes to output for the screen you would want to use a resolution that matches the true resolution of the screen that will be displaying the image. If that is only going to be your screen then work out it's true resolution and use that. If you are going to be displaying to the web then I would use a value of around 100, as that seems to be a reasonable average for the majority of displays out there. Setting 72 PPI is likely to result in a bit too much sharpening for the majority of displays.

Alan

I'm no expert but I've learned setting PPI makes no difference for screen resolution. It can be 1 or 1000. PPI only effects print resolution. Also through my journeys I have learned that to print well it should look at tad over-sharpened on screen.

I got this from this video. Around the 8:30 mark.

http://www.youtube.com …4mV3NsLmXw&feat​ure=relmfu

If you watch that video this one is good too. Both tie in to together

http://www.youtube.com …feature=player_​embedded#!

d.p., It is true that the ppi tag makes no difference to on-screen display, but it does affect the nature of the Output Sharpening done by LR. However, Alan, I think that there is just one measure of Screen sharpening for all settings from 72 to 150 ppi.

Daystar, when you set sharpening in the Develop/Detail panel the sharpening is only applied to the 1:1 preview. If the image is in "Fit" or "Fill" you will not see the affect of your settings and I suppose it would be easy to over sharpen without knowing it.

Thanks tzalman. I just leave it at 300 if I output for screen or paper and never seen a difference. That was the only reason why I tried the LR trial about 3 times over 2 years before finally buying it. I could not adjust to the output sharpening. Using PS I could see the final result before saving. Finally after doing some LR output print tests with a local printer I warmed up to it and now love using LR. Also it helped when I learned the Pixel Genius group developed the output sharpening for Adobe. I still use my own sharpening actions in PS for single images but I trust LR for mass edits.

Thanks everyone!

I'll look at the settings in Export and see where everything is set and I'll also take note of what size (1:1, Fit, Fill) my image is as I sharpen it. I'm still trying to get a handle on LR. Right now it seems like a HUGE monster I'm trying to tame.

I've never had any adobe products before and I'm not really a tech-minded individual. The pp part of photography has always been my nemesis. I LOVE photography and the vast creativity that can happen with it but once I get my images from the camera to the computer I can feel my brain starting to knot up. LOL

Ive always found that if i output a JPG with the long edge set to a size equal, or lower than my screen resolution things look perfect, but if they are larger then viewing them in Windows Explorer or Faststone they look too sharp and messy.
A friend does this and although we both have the same gear his shots tend to look way over sharpened compared to mine.

I remember a few years ago i would output at full res, and when viewed in Explorer they would look a bit soft. changing to full size would show them as they should be, although much larger than the screen could display them, and then clicking fit to screen again would produce very over sharpened images.

OK, so my next question is: what format, size, etc. should I trust if I'm interested in having an image printed?

Jpg, high quality setting / slight compression (in LR, 85 or 90), sRGB color space.

dave_bass5 wrote in post #15857707
Ive always found that if i output a JPG with the long edge set to a size equal, or lower than my screen resolution things look perfect, but if they are larger then viewing them in Windows Explorer or Faststone they look too sharp and messy.
A friend does this and although we both have the same gear his shots tend to look way over sharpened compared to mine.

I remember a few years ago i would output at full res, and when viewed in Explorer they would look a bit soft. changing to full size would show them as they should be, although much larger than the screen could display them, and then clicking fit to screen again would produce very over sharpened images.

Those photo browser type programs have algorithms for downsizing the display to screen size that are designed for speed rather than quality and tend to add contrast, which gives the impression of added sharpness.

So can I safely assume that what I see in LR is what I'll get on print?

daystar wrote in post #15857960
So can I safely assume that what I see in LR is what I'll get on print?

Yes-ish. If you know what to expect with certain output sharpening settings and use soft proof.

Side note: Why using a trial LR4 if LR5 beta is available?