DSLR Photography Forum

hi, just like to get some idea of what sharpening methods you guys use for your pictures, and any opinions you have on the following actions/plugins/programmes

Photokit Sharpener
Focal Blade
Focus Magic
Nik Sharpener Pro
Fred Miranda's Edgesharpen, Intellisharpen or Intellisharpen II

or do you just use good ole Unsharp Mask or high pass sharpening?

I've played around with some of the demos, and I think Focus Magic is quite different from the others, because it actually tries to deal with out of focus blur, or motion blur. It's very slow though, and not that easy to use, so I haven't been getting great results with it.

Nik Sharpener Pro seems to be more for applying a final sharpening to the picture before it's printed?

I think Edgesharpen is pretty much yet another sharpening action with an edge mask. Even though advocates say sharpening only the edges means you can use much higher unsharp mask values, i still don't like the haloes it creates at these values.

sigh. i liked high pass sharpening very much when i first learnt about it, especially because it's done on a layer and easily adjustable. but more and more i'm realising it doesn't work for all photos. some of them just turn out... weird...

so oddly enough, i find myself returning to plain unsharp mask again.

how do you guys sharpen your images? any opinions on the methods above, or any of your own?

thanks

Ever since I've learned the High Pass method I haven't looked back. I don't find a need to sharpen too much, but when I do this is the way to go for me. As you said it is easily adjustable.

I have Fm's Intellisharpen i and II but am finding that sharpening using lab color USM is producing the best results. I have it saved as a PS action now so its a breeze.

I have heard though that some folks love focus magic. I just may purchase that.

Jerry

I didn't think much of Focus Magic, it seems to create too many artefacts when it tries to sharpen out of focus objects so I've just given up on any dodgy shots and just chalk it up to bad luck.

I use high pass most of the time these days, if the image is still a bit soft I apply a usm at the end of it.

Modest amount of "capture sharpening" upon conversion from raw in C1; then if necessary some high-pass or USM, depending on the image. Sometimes both, as SJ said.

slejhamer Wrote:Modest amount of "capture sharpening" upon conversion from raw in C1; then if necessary some high-pass or USM, depending on the image. Sometimes both, as SJ said.

What are you setting your C1 sharpening to Mitch? I don't tend to use the soft look on it at all as it does weird things to eyes it tends to make them go a bit grey as well. I normally have it at 30-50 with a radius of 1-2, I probably should play more with their sharpening rather than doing it later.

No idea why you'd see luminosity or color shifts like that, J. I use soft-look/100/2 as my default and it's a very minor amount on 10D pics - just enough to offset the inherent haziness of the strong anti-aliasing filter. Are you looking at the changes in the focus-tab preview window? That is the only place to get an accurate preview.

Sounds like you've got something funky going on. Can you post examples?

For snapshots, if I'm going straight to print with no further processing, I will change it to normal sharpening / 150 / 2-3 and just go from there - it's a little aggressive but my lab (MPIX) does not seem to add additional sharpening when they print.