DPP Cranking Up Settings - Bad?

So If I don't take a very sharp picture and I want it sharp, is cranking up the RAW image from sharpnes (3) to (10) a bad thing necessarily? Do you guys usually max these settings out, or just crank up a few notches? Still new to the program...

It's easy to overdo sharpness and cause visible artifacts in the image, like "halos" at hard edges, and grainy skin texture.

Zoom to 100% view before ramping up your sharpening. You have a bit more sharpening latitude with raw files than JPGs. I wouldn't go beyond 5 in DPP. Any more than this will require more advanced sharpening technique, in a pixel editor like Photoshop.

Yeah, different subjects will take different sharpening. I typically am comfortable with 5 or less.

Also, the newest versions of DPP have a "Unsharp mask" tool that has three sliders that can be interesting to play with. But, like Chas advises, view those images at 100%. It's not hard to see some artifacts crop up by over-doing it.

tony ... what is this new version of DPP that has the Unsharp Mask tool. I'm using Version 3.8.1. Is there a later version ?

I have version 3.9.3 with it but it may also be in 3.9.2. I just checked, and 3.9.3 is available on the Canon site, so grab it and play around!

Apparently Canon has redone their site. I can not find the latest download version of DPP. The previous site had a tab labeled "downloads". I can't find it anywhere. I google it and still can not find it.

Can I get a link .... ?

This is for usa.canon.com:

Pick a recent camera -- say the T2i that pops up as a promotional. Click on it and you should go to its main page. Click on the Drivers and Software link and the lower part of the page turns to Drivers and Software. Scroll down and open the Select OS list, select your OS, and the bottom part of the page should refresh to show the updates for all the apps.

Note that next to the Drivers and Software link is the Brochures and Manuals link. Getting the manuals for the software means going there after your upgrades (you have to do each individually). I'd encourage getting the updated manuals if they are available.

I agree with Tony, normally I would never push that slider more than 5, usually 3-4.

Tony --- thanks so much. when you suggest that the sharpness slider should be around 5 or so, is that for BOTH the Sharpness ... and ... Unsharp Mask Sliders.

I"ve heard that sharpening "should" the "last" thing you do to a photo. So ... IF ... I sharpen in DPP and save the "convert and save" the photo to a high quality (10) JPEG -- and then take that photo into Photoshop CS5 and do "more" adjustments, including more sharpening via some plug-in actions (my normal workflow) - is that compounding the potential over-sharpening adjustment or over-processing in my photo's?

Do you have a suggested workflow for sharpening.

For the new DPP Unsharp Mask sharpening, from what I've seen you pay more attention to detail, but you can find a comfortable "starting place" and adjust from there. I've gone with a "rule of thumb of setting the sliders to 5 and then adjusting to there, but that is because the type of photography I do is OK with that. Some people prefer other "default starting points".

As to how much sharpening you do in DPP compared to what you do in Photoshop, well, there is a "conventional wisdom" approach that if you are going to sharpen in Photoshop, don't sharpen in a Raw processor to avoid overdoing it. Well, I personally don't find that approach all that helpful, but that's because I take the approach of doing all I can in the Raw processor and only going to Photoshop if I need to, so in my Raw processing I'll apply "input sharpening" that may or may not benefit from some Photoshop "special care". It becomes a case-by-case thing -- with some subjects it can be best to back off of the Raw sharpening to you can do effective "selective sharpening" in Photoshop -- sharpen some features and soften others, which DPP can't do.