How do you sharpen? Whats your workflow?

[Shootar401]

Mine is pretty simple. 90% of all my work is printed at 11x14 so I'll use that as a sample.

- Scan my negs on my V700 with Epson Scan (SilverFast is TERRIBLE!) at 4800 dpi.
- Open in Photoshop.
- Do my straightening and cropping, apply any printer profiles.
- Resize my image to 300dpi, reduce 50%.
- Apply USM at 50/1.0/0
- Resize the image again to 50%.
- Apply USM at 50/1.0/0
- Do a final resize to 11x14
- Save to TIFF to import into CaptureOne for adjustments. (because we all know PS is useless)

This gives me, what I think is the best sharpening for almost all of my work. Much better than using the high pass filter and blending mode.

Whats yours?

[bob carnie]

PS is useless??

So you sharpen before you make colour adjustments?

[Kirk Gittings]

A bit of trolling here. Silverfast is not terrible. You obviously have not learned to use it. Having said that I've switched to Vuescan

[Shootar401]

PS is useless??

So you sharpen before you make colour adjustments?

Yes, I usually get my color spot on at time of scanning, at the most I'll do some curves and levels in C1

[Preston]

PS is useless??

So you sharpen before you make colour adjustments?

Since I don't have CaptureOne, Lightroom, or...I use PS-CS6 exclusively. I would hardly call it useless.

I am curious as to why one would sharpen before making adjustments? Sharpening is the very last step I take, whether for print or the Web.

I do use the 'Sharpen' filter in Vuescan and then save my scan as a PSD 'master file'. All adjustments are made to the master file: It is never sharpened. If I want, say, an 8x10, I duplicate the master file, save it under a new name at 360 dpi (for my Epson 2400) and then sharpen that image as needed.

--P

[MIke Sherck]

- I use a cable release
- I always use a tripod
- I focus carefully
- I wait a moment for the camera to settle after pulling the dark slide and setting the shutter
- I'm careful not to jiggle the camera when I trip the shutter

Mike

[Kuzano]

All very good tips for getting a very sharp capture, which is a leg or two up on anything one can do in the scan, or post processing.

I will add one tip that I learned years ago, and was given some incredible number for the percentage gain in stability... Have learned to trust that tip and claim implicitly.

I always add a hook or eye to the bottom of the center post of my tripod whenever I get a new one.

1) I carry a net style shopping bag in my gear, which I fill with rocks on site and hang from the bottom of the center post. OR

2) Upon embarking out to shoot, I fill a couple of two gallon milk jugs with water and hang one or two from the center post of the tripod.

Naturally, no wind, and let the liquid option settle down before activating the shutter. But, isn't that why we shoot large format anyway. To fill the time void in our lives by not having much else happening anyway?

[paulr]

My goal in capture sharpening is to get the best pixel-level sharpness and s/n ratio possible, while still keeping the file looking natural at 100%. If it's digital capture I use Lightroom, which provides all the needed tools in one panel. This step can be done by eye at 100%, and will vary from image to image, lens to lens, etc... Typical settings are 0.6 to 0.7 pixel radius, 40 to 60%, "detail" set to around 25, masking set to 0. The detail slider is the most interesting; it controls the ratio between the two sharpening algorithms. At zero it's all unsharp mask; at 100 it's all blind deconvolution. The setting that works best depends on how well the deconvolution algorithm's point spread function matches the blur in your image. If it's a bad match, you get a ton of noise. If it's a good match, it works like magic.

For scans, I do this in photoshop, using a sharpening layer. The image layer is duplicated, with blend mode set to luminosity. The blend sliders are set to exclude, with a lot of feathering, the darkest shadows and brightest highlights. I use the smart sharpen filter, with the blur set to "lens blur," and other settings similar to the ones mentioned above for lightroom. Using the lens blur option adds deconvolution to the sharpening algorithm and usually (but not always) gives smoother looking results than unsharp mask. Smart sharpen used with gausian blur is identical to unsharp mask.

I also do a bit of local contrast enhancing. In lightroom this is done by turning up the clarity slider; it photoshop by running a pass of unsharp mask at large radius (180 to 250 pixels) and a very small intensity (10 to 15%).

Output sharpening is also done on a sharpening layer in PS; the radius is set to equal 1/10 mm at print size, to correspond to 5 lp/mm, unless the print will only be viewed farther than 10". For every additional 10" minimum viewing distance, add another 0.1mm. Amount of sharpening requires some judgment; I find that viewing on screen at 50% scale for 360ppi files let's me get it right most of the time. A file properly sharpened for printing will look significantly oversharpened at 100% on screen.

[Walter Calahan]

I do a very slight global unsharp mask via Silverfast. I do all the rest of my sharpening, using the high pass filter technique applied to only those areas of the image needing sharpening, at the very end after all the adjustments, cropping, and sizing.

[Shootar401]

How would one go about doing this? I tried duplicating the layer, but after setting the blending mode to luminosity I'm lost

For scans, I do this in photoshop, using a sharpening layer. The image layer is duplicated, with blend mode set to luminosity. The blend sliders are set to exclude, with a lot of feathering, the darkest shadows and brightest highlights. I use the smart sharpen filter, with the blur set to "lens blur," and other settings similar to the ones mentioned above for lightroom. Using the lens blur option adds deconvolution to the sharpening algorithm and usually (but not always) gives smoother looking results than unsharp mask. Smart sharpen used with gausian blur is identical to unsharp mask.