Sharpening reflections.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Guys and Gals, I would like your feedback on whether one should sharpen a reflection. Does one select the subject and reflection and apply sharpening to both, or does one sharpen only the subject, and leave the reflection as shot? I tend to take a lot of reflection shots and I generally select both subject and reflection, and apply sharpening to both.

[Fabs Forns]

Stu, I think it would depend on how good the reflection is. Normally i apply Smart sharpen as a new layer and look at the result, masking out what bothers me, most of the time everything but the subject.
I would think not sharpening the reflection may look better, you don't want to compete.
Looking forward to other ideas.

[Tony Whitehead]

I tend to do similar to Fabs - sharpen on a layer and then mask out/mask in what I want. At times sharpening the water texture can look better so I just treat every image individually. If it's a smooth surface with a fairly sharp reflection I would generally not sharpen it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

If the reflection looks good, I sharpen it, just a little less than the subject.

[Doug Brown]

I don't normally sharpen the reflection. But when I noise reduce the BG, I will mask out the reflection to preserve the texture of it.

[Stu Bowie]

Thanks a lot guys and Fabs.

Doug, I agree 100%. I will never run NR on the reflection when doing the BG.

[Fabs Forns]

Actually guys, I find the Noiseware Pro has enough controls, including contrast and sharpening, that I never needed to mask NR anymore.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Stuart, I dont sharpen my reflections. But I stay in a windy place and mostly shoot in the evening as opposed to morning. So I never get super clear reflections. But if I were to get one, I'd probaby do what Axel suggests...sharpen but sharpen less.