Sensor size and sharpening

[Malcolm Benn]

This just might be a dumb question but would sensor size impact the amount of sharpening necessary for a given image i.e. 1.6 crop versus 1.3 crop?

[Julian Mole]

Hi Malcolm,

As I understand it, the amount of sharpening required for an image depends on it's output size in pixels, the larger the dimensions the more sharpening is needed. So therefore I don't think it is a factor of sensor size, because a 1.6x crop sensor can contain more pixels than a 1.3x crop sensor.

But I may be wrong ...?

[Roger Clark]

Malcon,

The amount of sharpening is more a factor of the sensor blur filter (it is different in different cameras), how sharp your lens is, how good your technique is, and how much you intend to enlarge the image.

Roger

[Malcolm Benn]

Ok, it would seem that sensor size isn't something to factor into the sharpening equation ...thanks.

[John Chardine]

I would add one point- I have noticed that small, resampled images, say 1024 x 768 pixels require less aggressive sharpening than full resolution images- at least this applies to screen results at 100%. So, if you are not resampling images, then one straight from a 15 mp camera will need more sharpening for this reason alone, than one from a 10 mp camera.

[Emil Martinec]

One factor is the lower S/N of smaller sensors, which makes it harder to sharpen the image without bringing up the noise.