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josephunit2n
josephunit2n
Known Participant
July 1, 2022
Answered

Workflow: Sharpening -- What is best practice?

  • July 1, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 1818 views

I did post this in the general forum, was advised to bring the question here, for more detailed information:

 

My practice has been to edit a photo, including resizing, then apply sharpening as the last step. Now, I just noticed Camera Raw applies sharpening (default value, 40) before importing into the Photo Editor (Elements '21). WHICH WOULD BE BEST: a) as I have done, let Camera Raw apply its default sharpening, then I again sharpen as last editing step, after resizing; b) set Camera Raw sharpening value to zero (0 - no sharpening), then perform all sharpening as last photo editing step; or, c) Set Camera Raw to a desirable degree of sharpening, and do no more sharpening in Photo Editor ???

PLEASE ADVISE

 

In the general forum, I have received this response:

 

Adobe Community Professional
correct answer Correct answer by MichelBParis
Adobe Community Professional , 16 hours ago

@josephunit2n

Your question has been discussed widely 10 or 15 years ago by the programmers of ACR themselves. The explanations were nearly always how to distinguish and optimize two different stages of sharpening; the 'capture sharpening' which compensate the slight blur creating from the anti-aliasing step after separating color components and the 'output sharpening' to adapt the result to the final output, printing size and parameters or display.

I have difficulties to find links to those discussions, but my guess is that today, most people using ACR or Lightroom for raw processing will keep the default capture setting AND sharpen to taste for their outputs. That may be different for non raw editing (jpegs, tiffs...) were capture sharpening has already been done in camera or software.

I suggest you ask in the ACR forum directly:

 

ACR FORUM:  Please note, that last comment does not apply, I never capture .jpg's in- camera, thus I have no in-camera sharpening.

 

Correct answer TheDigitalDog

First, this article talks about a workflow. One that exists in Adobe raw converters (capture and output sharpening). 

You asked about "best practices" then wrote what was shown is overkill. So I can't really help you further. 

Defaults are starting points to better settings, nothing more. You can accept them and move on, they should be better than no settings but this isn't 'best practice'; that takes some work, and is image specific, camera (capture) specific and output specific. 

 

Entire books on just sharpening in Adobe products have been written by Adobe experts:

 

https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Fraser-Real-World-Image-Sharpening-with-Adobe-Photoshop-Camera-Raw-and-Lightroom-2nd-Edition/PGM258696.html

This isn't a 'light' simple subject if best practices (optimal quality) is your goal. 

2 replies

J
Jawad Ahmed 55
Participant
February 8, 2025

post is good to see

TheDigitalDog
TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
July 1, 2022

Start here (the basis for sharpening in Adobe raw processors):

http://creativepro.com/out-of-gamut-thoughts-a-sharpening-workflow/ 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
josephunit2n
josephunit2nAuthor
Known Participant
July 2, 2022

Thank you.  That article did give me an overview, a helpful perspective.  Nevertheless, for me, it's overkill, beyond my skill level, plus I use Photoshop Elements (2021), not Photoshop, for editing.  Could you distill this down to a simplistic answer, citing my original suggeted options?  Already, I now believe my established process (choice "a", above) is proximate to the article referenced.  Seems I should continue to use the default ACR sharpening, then final sharpening after all edits and resizing (plus, localized sharpening, during editing, described in the aritcle, may also be useful).  If these assumptions are reasonable, I guess my remaining question would be:  for input into the Editor, leave the ACR sharpening at default level ("40")?  Also, that article describes sharpening for various types of output, while my output is 95% on screen viewing (and, rarely, professional, outsourced printing).

TheDigitalDog
TheDigitalDogCorrect answer
Inspiring
July 2, 2022

First, this article talks about a workflow. One that exists in Adobe raw converters (capture and output sharpening). 

You asked about "best practices" then wrote what was shown is overkill. So I can't really help you further. 

Defaults are starting points to better settings, nothing more. You can accept them and move on, they should be better than no settings but this isn't 'best practice'; that takes some work, and is image specific, camera (capture) specific and output specific. 

 

Entire books on just sharpening in Adobe products have been written by Adobe experts:

 

https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Fraser-Real-World-Image-Sharpening-with-Adobe-Photoshop-Camera-Raw-and-Lightroom-2nd-Edition/PGM258696.html

This isn't a 'light' simple subject if best practices (optimal quality) is your goal. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
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