Your Initial Settings

You can take the perfectly exposed image, with the best equipment, but if you fail in processing, especially unsharp mask, all your efforts are wasted. In landscape, I have seen the starting settings for unsharp all over the place. I typically use 200, 1.2 and 4. What settings do use use?

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Permalink Reply by Larry Abruzzo on October 17, 2011 at 2:03pm

1.SOFT SUBJECTS

AMOUNT:150%

RADIUS:1

THRESHOLD:10

2.MAXIMUM

AMOUNT:65%

RADIUS:4

THRESHOLD:3

3.ALL-PURPOSE

AMOUNT:85%

RADIUS:1

THRESHOLD:4

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on October 18, 2011 at 3:33am

I change Unsharp Mask settings based on the scene and the final size.

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Permalink Reply by Papa Rotzzi on October 18, 2011 at 3:33am

"but if you fail in processing, especially unsharp mask, all your efforts are wasted." WOW!

Considering that many very good photographers choose to do very little processing outside of the camera.. and considering that sharpness is a very subjective thing (which explains why "settings for unsharp all over the place"..).. and considering that many expert photoshop users no longer use unsharp mask, choosing one of several other options in the program to achieve the look they desire... I will have to call B_ll Sh!t to your blanket "wasted" claim.

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on October 18, 2011 at 6:49am

That's perhaps a little harsh. The basic concept is correct, if you screw up post processing (including over/under sharpening) then your picture will not look as good as possible.

A major difference between film and digital cameras is the filters that form part of the sensor assembly in almost all digital cameras. How you got your image into the computer affects relative sharpness. Personal preference and how you use that image determines what processing is required. Printing seems to need a lot more sharpening than display on a monitor but monitors vary widely by brand and size and printers probably vary at least as much as they all seem to take different inks.

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Permalink Reply by Papa Rotzzi on October 18, 2011 at 11:34am

Well, exactly. If you "fail" anything in any part of the process.. your photo will not meet it's full potential. But.. of all the things you could fail at, unsharp mask would probably be the lowest on my list of.. "You gotta get this right, or your efforts are wasted." Any 5 of us could look at any given photo and we would offer 6 different opinions of the photo's sharpness. Does that mean the 4 of us are wrong?

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Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on October 18, 2011 at 12:37pm

I've begun doing most of my sharpening in Lightroom. I don't know if it works the same as P'Shop, and I don't care. It seems to have different look, to my eye, than P'Shop. Amount of sharpening will vary depending on the file size more than any other factor. Some subject material doesn't look good with sharpening. I don't think it's possible to give a blanket answer to any of the options available in P'Shop since the final outcome will vary by the photographer, the material and several other factors. This seems to me to be a lot like the discussion about "rules of composition". Everyone wants a formula that will give universally good results. No such formula exists. Rules for fools, or rules in P'Shop (I don't like the term "post processing" since the implication is that you can fix bad camera technique by "post processing) are irrelevant.

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on October 18, 2011 at 2:03pm

Once upon a time, your car could not park itself. Now there are several models that can parallel park while you just sit there!

This is one of those not yet but possibly coming things that Adobe is working on: http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/2011/10/behind-all-the-buzz-.... My niece sent the link to me the other day.

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Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on October 18, 2011 at 3:31pm

The onward march to "I don't need a photographer" continues. Thanks Adobe, I needed that!

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Permalink Reply by Gary Vernon on October 21, 2011 at 2:23am

I don't know how useful in reality the new deblur tool will actually be,

there was a big fuss made about the content aware fill tool, but i still prefer the accuracy of the clone tool.

On sharpening, my camera sharpening is set to zero as it's the last step in any process and i never save a master file sharpened ever. Apart from USM there are many other methods for sharpening, it does depend on subject matter for example a landscape will have different settings than a furry animal. The ratio and amount also depends on resolution, the settings will be different depending on pixel dimensions for the web. The other factor is printing and media used, fine-art water-colour paper will have different settings than glossy media and again resolution, a 6 x 4 will be totally different to a a 36 x 24 @300ppi obviously.

So there are many variables - it's all very learn-able and not in any way 'rocket science' - the important thing to remember is to apply 'selective' sharpening by either masking or painting back with the history brush - bokeh really requires no sharpening and some other areas less than others..

Another point is sharpen in either 16 bit .tiff or .psd format then convert to a .Jpg file for the web or you are just adding more sharpening noise to existing compression noise :))