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Participant
May 17, 2019
Question

sharpening looks amazing in PS

  • May 17, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 346 views

but looks like crap when exporting to print in pro labs. What am I doing wrong and why can't I see it in PS? I've never had this problem before until the recent update.

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1 reply

JJMack
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 17, 2019

A printer can print an image much sharper than your display.  You have posted no information about your image.  How man high quality pixels do you have for your image.  Pixels produced from a camera not interpolated pixels. At what print resolution is you  image being printed at. At least post an example image file.

JJMack
Participant
May 17, 2019

Here is the picture I'm talking about. Taken with a Canon 5D M4, 50mm 1.2, ISO 200, f5.0, 1/200 with flash. I had to sharpen because of the back row not being in focus, but the front row was masked out.  Here it looks good. When I transfer to WHCC or ACI it looks over sharpened. I've not done anything differently than I've done before. I export out of Lightroom using 300 pixels per inch and nothing else is checked or manipulated.

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 17, 2019

I think this looks pretty good, and I don't see why it should end up oversharpened. Are they perhaps applying their own automatic sharpening on top of yours? That must be it. Never underestimate the "helpfulness" of consumer-oriented services...

I just have to ask why the muddy highlights and weak shadows...? If it's intentional, I won't ask.

...

Generally - you may already know this - you absolutely need to view at 100% to properly judge sharpening. That maps one image pixel to exactly one screen pixel - no screen resampling that inevitably softens what you see.

Also, if you have resized this in Photoshop, do not use "Bicubic Automatic". It has its own sharpening built in, and way too much of it. We all hate it. I always use "Bicubic Smoother", which has no inbuilt sharpening, and then carefully sharpen afterwards.