Sharpening workflow?

[Colin Knight]

I recently started using Digital Photo Professional instead of ACR for my RAW conversions. What I don't like is DPP's sharpening- it seems to result in some nasty artifacting.

I could do much better- here's something I posted today and Lance hooked me up with some sharpening in the repost: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=53294

How do you sharpen? In addition to DPP I'm using CS3.

Thanks,
Colin

[Aidan Briggs]

I use DPP as well but I turn off all the NR and sharpening. I generally don't sharpen my master files, but will often use some selective sharpening around the eye/head area. I work at 100% when sharpening so I don't overdo it. I only sharpen a small bit to bring out the detail a little more, I never use enough to get artifacts. For web I usually resize my images to about 1500 pixels wide with no sharpening, and then resize down to 750 pixels wide using the nearest neighbor preserve hard edges setting. That is usually enough sharpening for web, but I will sometimes add one round of smart sharpen if I think it could use a tad more sharpening.

[Jan Wegener]

Hi,

I usually do ot apply any sharpening in the Raw conversion. When preparing files for a web use. I apply sharpening in several steps. I also never really liked DPP sharpening, wheras the NR can be quite good.

I wrote in article in my Blog (http://vogelfotografien.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/the-perfect-web-image/)about it, you might find interesting to read. :)

[Richard Peters]

I did a little article about selective sharpening too on my blog which may or may not be useful, you can read the article here (http://www.richardpeters.co.uk/blog/2008/11/18/selective-sharpening/).

:)

[Colin Knight]

Thanks for the wonderful help guys! I'm being educated as we speak....

Colin

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Colin, I keep sharpness at 4 in DPP. Then in Photoshop elements, I typically sharpen the bird only AFTER resizing. Select the bird. Use refine edge to make sure edges are not included in the selection. I run a USM of 215 and 0.24 typically....but play with it a bit depending on how sharp the orig capture is. Simple.

[Colin Knight]

Thanks for the input!

Colin