http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset- An entire Lightstalkers thread via RSS/XML. en-us Since there are a lot of 5D users here, I'm curious if there are any presets that you use as a starting point in capture sharpening in either Lightroom or ACR beyond the normal defaults of Amount (25), Radius (1.0), Detail (25) and Masking (0). Mon, 19 May 2008 15:45:45 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset- hi charlie i am not a 5d user, but when people mention sharpening, prevailing talk says don't. let the layout guys do it if it's needed. i may have grabbed the stick by the sharp end though... bestest as always john. Fri, 16 May 2008 12:19:07 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121480 Charlie, I'm not a Canon user either and I find Nikon images need a lot of sharpening in photoshop. My amount is about 100, radius is .4 and masking 0. I don't touch the pics I send to editorial clients. I do it for my corporate clients and my own work. Fri, 16 May 2008 12:45:31 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121483 I've always done capture sharpening follow the Bruce Fraser model of three level sharpening. If I am sending to editors or stock, I never do output sharpening, but for my web page and printing, it's really necessary. I've always used PhotoKit Sharpener and actions, but since I am now using Lightroom and because Lightroom's Detail module is based on the Photokit Process it doesn't make sense to export to CS3 for capture sharpening. This of course means I have to really learn and understand how to sharpen on my own images. Ughh. But there have to be some defaults to start from, and that's what I am looking for. Are there really no Canon 5D shooters out there willing to respond? Or have they all sold their camera bodies, expecting the eminent release of a 5D II or 7D? Fri, 16 May 2008 16:03:14 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121506 if you shoot in raw then the in camera sharpening is irrelevant, it might change the number used on your import software but doesn't actually change the file. general wisdom is to shoot a balanced file and do sharpening in post. if you shoot in jpeg, i have read a couple of articles about how canons or anyones in camera sharpening algorithms are not great and you are better off setting it to zero and using usharp in post anyway. personally i don't even sharpen on import as acr wants me to, i save my master tiff with no sharpening what so ever. for jpeg exports i use the bicubic sharper to reduce the size of the files and then apply a minor usharp. Fri, 16 May 2008 16:11:12 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121508 Just to clarify I'm referring to ACR or Lightroom settings, not in camera settings. Also, I am shooting in RAW not jpeg. Fri, 16 May 2008 16:20:58 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121512 i suppose i should have read more of the body of the message rather then just the header. as i said i put that down to zero. Fri, 16 May 2008 16:26:51 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121513 Charlie, Generally I will output at Lightroom's default sharpening settings if I am delivering a large volume of stuff to a client and have no idea what they will be doing next. If I use Canon's DPP, I tend to set sharpening around "3" or thereabouts. I find sharpening in Lightroom (beyond the defaults) really difficult: the masking and detail functions often give me really peculiar looking images and it seems to me that it's a point where you can really mess up your images. If I am doing personal stuff I am far more conservative and often output from Lightroom with no sharpening at all. I then do my retouching and only afterwards start to sharpen according to use. This takes lots of time and I often get it wrong. I just figure that all sharpening for commercial work will be a compromise. The majority of my clients have no idea that sharpening is an issue. Printers I have spoken to about this say not to sharpen but I suspect thay mean not too much. If you don't sharpen at all your clients will tell you the pictures are soft... I've tried the Bruce Fraser thing. My conclusion is that to sharpen properly you need to do it on an image-by-image basis and that this just isn't practical in a commercial context (and not worth the trouble if the pictures will be printed small or if there is a competent technicial somewhere along the line who knows what size the picture will be printed, at what resolution, using which printing process and will do the job better and more appropriately than you... If in doubt, you can always talk to your client. And as I'm not convinced that I have found the right way to go about this, I would really be interested to hear how others approach the problem... Fri, 16 May 2008 18:21:14 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121527 The guys at thelightsrightstudio.com has a lot of great stuff including a full set of sharpening-actions with easy and thorough explanation to go- for free: http://thelightsrightstudio.com/TLRSharpeningToolkit.htm They even takes the sharpening further and splits it between surfaces and contours and if you follow their recomendations you will get really great results from even quite "wooly" files. I NEWER deliver unsharpened files to costumers no matter what they say. Naturally just doing UM over the whole picture can do a lot of harm. But correct and careful sharpening is NOT harmful. Naturally sharpening in 3-4 times is for demanding work such as posters, fullpage prints and the like but since their actions are so easy why not use it on ewerything? Sun, 18 May 2008 17:56:44 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121655 am totally staying away from sharpening as well, you do NOT wanna mess up your file with that !!!! Sun, 18 May 2008 20:57:28 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121670 i use the acr default of 25 for sharpening. i did a photoshop course laid on by corbis uk a couple of years ago, that's what they recommended and i've just stuck with it. for printing i use the high pass filter technique, which is done on a layer and so doesn't degrade your master tiff. Sun, 18 May 2008 21:02:43 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121671 If you are not talking about in camera settings, what are you referring to as "capture sharpening"? There is no best setting. It depends on the size of your circles of confusion (blurriness) of the image and if this is for the web, it also depends on your pixel dimensions of the output. Trial and error is the best advice here. Sun, 18 May 2008 23:46:00 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121674 If one shoots in RAW, the camera settings don't apply. I am shooting in RAW. "Capture sharpening" or "input sharpening" is a term invented by the late Bruce Fraser who designed the multiple pass concept of sharpening. The first pass being capture sharpening, the second pass being creative sharpening and the final pass, source sharpening, which is adding an additional sharpening layer just prior to printing or for web use. Here's a link if you'd like to learn more: http://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=608637 At the capture level, all one is trying to do is improve the softness typical of a digital sensor, thus one can use a standard preset as a starting point in ACR for a specific camera sensor. Mon, 19 May 2008 07:12:26 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121681 You are talking about not having to bring your images into CS3 though, using only LR there's no way to discretely apply sharpening to account for the LPF, creative edits, and output. You are stuck in the single pass world. The only way to keep everything in LR and have multi pass sharpening is to shoot jpg where you do in camera sharpening, then sharpen for output using LR. Even then you are limited to 2 stage global sharpening and it's hardly worth giving up RAW for. No disrespect to the late Bruce Fraser, the man clearly knew his stuff, but he preached a lot of things that existed mostly in the realm of theory, and much of which had little practical significance. It sure sold a lot of books and software though. I still remember his article on the importance of 16 bit/channel files, if you read it you will notice he used a CGI gradient. A photo would have never shown the posterization that was at the center of his argument using those edits. Anyways, if you still feel this is important, Canon published a white paper with the settings (radius, amount, etc..) to account for the LPF for the 1Ds II, you might Google around and see if they did the same for the 5D. If not email Chuck Westfall. Mon, 19 May 2008 12:42:50 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121690 Tommy- I am ONLY talking about doing the first pass, capture sharpening, in Lightroom. I will normally do other sharpening in CS3 later. Also, I've seen the white paper and that's exactly what I'm looking for, but for the 5D. I've been trolling around the web looking for days to no avail. I've found the info for the G9 as well, but the 5D, no luck. Also, the information that is out there on the 1Ds II is USM and I have no idea how to compare that to the sliders in Lightroom. I appreciate everyone's feedback here, but I think this is just about a dead dog. Mon, 19 May 2008 13:00:43 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121693 You could always do the USM thing as a batch action in Photoshop. I'm with David S. You wan't to do the minimum and leave it there. I've seen a lot of RAW presharpening techniques that can easily mess up a good file. Priters know how to do this best. Mon, 19 May 2008 13:08:48 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121694 I just looked at the white paper again and it lists the same values for all of the 1 series digital cameras from the 1D to 1Ds to the Mk IIs. .3 pix, 300%, threshold of 0 (same as masking in LR I think). The 5D pixel density is in that range and I don't think Canon changed the color filter array & LPF much so that should probably work for the 5D too. Not sure about detail, play around and as they say, if you can't tell, it don't matter. Mon, 19 May 2008 13:52:15 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121701 I use the sharpening on the 5D and it seems to work pretty well. I don't have it turned up all the way, just a notch or two. I rarely have to sharpen my images in Photoshop because of it. Mon, 19 May 2008 15:45:45 +0000 http://www.lightstalkers.org/5d-users-do-you-use-a-capture-sharpening-preset-#121712