[foxglove]

am I the only one that sharpens the image and then masks out out-of-focus areas like the background so the sharpening is only applied to the subject/s that I want to draw the eye towards?

Nope. I do this, too, depending on the specific image. For example, in a portrait, it is sometimes useful to apply sharpening only to the eyes, mouth, and hair, so that skin pores are not brought into sharp relief.

Add another selective sharpener to the list. I generally use a method in PS described somewhere on the forum (I think - haven't searched) by Mousehill for his macro work, in which much of the image is oof and you don't want to emphasize any noise. Essentially, you create a new channel and use the "find edges" filter, mess with levels, put on some gaussian blur, and hey presto you have a layer mask that will confine your sharpening to the edges and detail areas, and leave the rest alone. If you're interested and can't find Mousehill's original thread, I've got the instructions in a word document someplace.

Great info in this thread, thanks everyone! I've discovered a few new techniques to play with...

Julie

[jstevewhite]

Add another selective sharpener to the list. I generally use a method in PS described somewhere on the forum (I think - haven't searched) by Mousehill for his macro work, in which much of the image is oof and you don't want to emphasize any noise. Essentially, you create a new channel and use the "find edges" filter, mess with levels, put on some gaussian blur, and hey presto you have a layer mask that will confine your sharpening to the edges and detail areas, and leave the rest alone. If you're interested and can't find Mousehill's original thread, I've got the instructions in a word document someplace.

Great info in this thread, thanks everyone! I've discovered a few new techniques to play with...

Julie

Woo, great idea! Now I have to figure out a reason to leave work early so I can go home and try it!

[dylansalt]

All the above posts leads me to the conclusion that the "sharpening" process for digital is the hardest, most frustrating, time consuming part of the process;-)

This is the only time I miss the simplicity of when we shot film - good lens & technique=sharp print/slide - easy.

Cheers

Dylan

[raymeedc]

Am I the only one who thinks applying the right amount of sharpening to an image is the hardest part

I forget where I heard it, but I think the waiting is the hardest part.

[jstevewhite]

I forget where I heard it, but I think the waiting is the hardest part.

Tom Petty?

[jstevewhite]

All the above posts leads me to the conclusion that the "sharpening" process for digital is the hardest, most frustrating, time consuming part of the process;-)

This is the only time I miss the simplicity of when we shot film - good lens & technique=sharp print/slide - easy.

Cheers

Dylan

What's funny is that we used to spend hours and hours researching things like developer technique and film/developer combinations to get 'sharper' images. The psycho-visual component of sharpness has been understood for some time, but with silver the options were limited. Put the best lens you can find on the best camera and tripod you can afford, then expose properly and develop accordingly.

We experimented with still (no agitation) developer - that was tough, but when it worked it was incredible. Overexpose the film a bit, soak it in developer, then pull it out and get it flat (so you didn't have any streaks or variances). In the heavily exposed highlights, the developer would exhaust quickly, and in the less exposed shadows, you'd be effectively pushing them to higher ISO ( only it was ASA back then ) and you'd emphasize the border effect. It was named after a man, but I can't remember his name. It's basically increasing localized contrast near edges. Made them look sharper.

And we did pixel-peep, sorta. And lots of people sneered at that, too! We had 25x aerial focusing scopes, and 50mm lenses on Omega D4 enlargers with condenser heads; rack that thing to the top, focus on the scope, and you could count silver oxide lumps in Plus-X negatives.

I used Technical Pan (ASA25, black and white, on a mylar backing) and developed it with technidol; THAT was a combination that outresolved any lens you can put your hands on, and 5x7s from that 35mm negative had long, smooth tonal scales that looked like medium format.

Those were fun days. But I certainly don't think they were any less technical. Many people had LBA, and we argued about which lens was sharpest, and magazines still did resolution tests, and... well, you get it. Photo geeks are photo geeks.

[foxglove]

Woo, great idea! Now I have to figure out a reason to leave work early so I can go home and try it!

Feel free to pm me if you want a more detailed description of what I do... it's actually pretty quick, once you get the hang of it.

[foxglove]

<snip>
Those were fun days. But I certainly don't think they were any less technical. Many people had LBA, and we argued about which lens was sharpest, and magazines still did resolution tests, and... well, you get it. Photo geeks are photo geeks.

Great post, and a great point! I must say, though, I prefer sitting on a comfy chair in normal lighting to muck with my photos, rather than standing on a cold, hard floor in a small, smelly room under red light. It's a different skill set (geek set?) and one that suits me better!

Still, you did make me slightly nostalgic for the magic of watching an image come up... I do miss that. It really did seem a bit like magic.

Julie

[quantum]

When I REALLY want to sharpen an image (very large print or tight crop) I apply unsharp mask(0.3 pixels radius at 100% to 200% intensity), increase local contrast as needed and finally apply some very fine film grain at high intensity.
This one is not made with a Pentax (n*kon d40 used [I process some of my friends pictures]) and this is how it'd look printed 40" (1 meter) wide.
If it looks a little blurry then step back a feet or 2 .

The hardest part is to know when to stop

[scorpioh]

Actually applying blurring/softening appropriately is just as tough as sharpening. I had never view sharpening as the toughest stage in post-processing. The toughest part is usually adjusting the colours to bring out the mood, feel and punch.

[FHPhotographer]

There are two stages for sharpening: capture and output. I have never tried to sharpen a jpeg image, so this only applies to RAW:
it's important to remove the default sharpening in whatever RAW converter you are using in the capture; every converter applies some sharpening and if you don't take it off that default and set to 0, both in pixels and %, when you open it in PS etc you'll be sharpening a USM sharpened imag and that isn't so good. Open the image it in PS > crop > duplicate layer > luminous mode @ 50% > USM 150 / 1.5 > merge layers. Then do whatever editing you want. Then for output duplicate layer > Luminous Mode @100% >Smart Sharpening and you can play around with opacity to fine tune that layer, keeping the output in mind: for the Web you'll want to keep the sharpening up a bit, printing a bit less depending on the image variables.