STICKY:  Sharpening Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, and FAQ

René Damkot wrote in post #5327452
I run Manyk SRS in the same action I use to watermark the images.
All default settings, mostly the same as used in the original action, but changed the size too 800px, and backed off the sharpening somewhat.

I've been using this same action for several months after discovering it in a post at naturescapes.com and must say its the best I've used yet. Slightly modified like you to resize 740x500 for the web.

René Damkot wrote in post #5246542
Lightroom and ACR 4 can sorta make an "on the fly" mask.

LR sharpening

I hate to be a bother, but just what is ACR/ACR 4 ? I'm totally new to this whole post processing world. Thanks.

Adobe Camera Raw

Thanks

Grumpy_one wrote in post #5216980
I do my sharpening a little different. I go to "lab color" mode (image pull down menu), select lightness channel from channels, do my USM adjustment on just that channel, and go back to "rgb" mode. Here is an example of one of my daughters team mates from her soccer team.
edit: this is done with PS

What else did you do to that image to enhance the colors in lab color mode? Seems like you made more than just a sharpening change.

I'd been a fan of using a high pass sharpen on most of my images with the layer set to soft light until someone showed me the smart sharpen filter. It's fairly similar to the un-sharp mask. I'll rarely even make a global change to the image though. Most of the time I'll sharpen a duplicate layer over the original image and then use the eraser tool on the areas that don't need to be sharp.

thanks for the tutorial
bookmarked.

You're more than welcome! It's cool to see another POTN member in HK.

Grumpy_one wrote in post #5216980
I do my sharpening a little different. I go to "lab color" mode (image pull down menu), select lightness channel from channels, do my USM adjustment on just that channel, and go back to "rgb" mode. Here is an example of one of my daughters team mates from her soccer team.

snevs wrote in post #5217638
Though I usually apply sharpening this way also, you should be able to achieve the same result in RBG mode and after the USM-sharpening use the "Fade Unsharp Mask" command. This command should apply the sharpening then to the lightness channel. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I know what you're saying, snevs, but you forgot the critical part of your sentence. You select "Fade USM" and set the mode to Luminosity.

You're right, though. Conversions in and out of Lab mode shouldn't be done carelessly, because every conversion incurs quantization

I've read through this thread, and it's great. But I'm quite surprised at the number of people who use a Threshold of 0. I rarely use a Threshold lower than 3, even with the cleanest 100ISO images.

A million thanks for those tips regarding industrial equipment. This blows away my previous (limited) knowledge of sharpening, and since I photograph complicated machinery, you can imagine the change in results. I'd love to share samples, but unfortunately it's all proprietary and therefore not allowed.

I obviously don't know what I am doing, and can't find an answer anywhere. I have created an action to do sharpening and put it on a keystroke. However, when I run the action with an adjustment layer I often don't see the box that shows the sharpening as it occurs. Other times I create a duplicate layer and get an error message that says the action can't run because nothing is selected. I am too inexperienced in CS3 to know what is wrong. Can anyone help?

Ward

Anyone tried something like this?

Background copy
USM 18-40-0
USM 150-.3-0
Edit>Fade USM 100% in Darken Mode
USM 150-.3-0
Edit>Fade USM 50% in Lighten Mode
Flatten image

This together with an edge mask would make sharpening very flexible.

René Damkot wrote in post #5327452
I run Manyk SRS in the same action I use to watermark the images.
All default settings, mostly the same as used in the original action, but changed the size too 800px, and backed off the sharpening somewhat.

Gallery here: All images got the same (capture) sharpening in LR, all got batched thru Manyk SRS.

I find it acceptable. Sure, it could be better, but I don't want to do each file seperately.

Rene,
Acceptable? Your live music shots are quite good -- good compositions and clean images. Do you do any noise reduction on them along with the Manyk SRS? Also, any tips on adjustments that you'd recommend making if I wanted my final image size to be around 1800x1800 (I like to size for viewing on the web but also suitable for printing).

Thanks,
Frank

WordWaster wrote in post #5601026
I obviously don't know what I am doing, and can't find an answer anywhere. I have created an action to do sharpening and put it on a keystroke. However, when I run the action with an adjustment layer I often don't see the box that shows the sharpening as it occurs. Other times I create a duplicate layer and get an error message that says the action can't run because nothing is selected. I am too inexperienced in CS3 to know what is wrong. Can anyone help?

Ward

Hi Ward, don't be shy - why not start a new topic with your question? A lot more people will find it and help you out.

I can't quite tell what the issue is, but I'm certainly confused by your reference to an Adjustment Layer - you can't sharpen those, as far as I know.

frankgindc wrote in post #5606903
Rene,
Acceptable? Your live music shots are quite good -- good compositions and clean images. Do you do any noise reduction on them along with the Manyk SRS? Also, any tips on adjustments that you'd recommend making if I wanted my final image size to be around 1800x1800 (I like to size for viewing on the web but also suitable for printing).

Thanks,
Frank

Thanks

No NR.

On the adjustments: You can alter the size easy in the action.
Then let it run, and see if you like the end result. Sharpening probably won't be optimal, so you'd want to play with the settings in one or more of the sharpening steps. (amount, radius, layer opacity)

In a perfect world, you'd apply different sharpening for print and web.