How do you sharpen your pictures

[engstrom]

I'm just trying to get an idea of how people sharpen their pictures.

[AjP]

Photoshop USM if full format then I use about 0.7-1.0 at 200-300%
otherwise if small about 0.3 at 100-200%

[PeteQ]

Working more and more with PSCS2 and its Smart Sharpen filter vs USM. Like that I can save presets for ballpark repeating similar situation sharpening.

[jeffkohn]

I've found that Focal Blade is the most powerful. I sometimes use the "creative" sharpening from Photokit, but I've found their Capture sharpening leaves a bit to be desired. With Focal Blade, you can use it in semi-automatic mode when you're in a hurry (and can even batch pictures), but when you want to really tweak the sharpening Focal Blade gives you more options than any tool I've tried.

For output sharpening I just let QImage do its thing, it works quite well.

[Roy]

PhotoShop USM here too if it needs it but only after reducing the size. Usually amount 125, radius .5, threshold 0. These numbers are the max I've used.

[bbailey]

I use the 20D CSPro plugin from Fred Miranda on the full size image and then a very small amount of luminosity USM on the resized version.

[johnastovall]

Smart sharpen in CS2 using a set of custom functions, I've found good for my style. I use "lense blur" rather than "Gaussian" based on a tip from Scott Kelby and it works well.

[OlgaJ]

I use more than one method but mostly, I have an older Fred Miranda Action (not plug-in) which was for the 10D. I've used that same action now, in its lowest strength, successfully on Sony 828 images, 20D, 300D, 350D, 1DM2 and 5D.

Olga

[Patti Edens]

First things first: Happy Birthday! And many more...

I'm never happy with how I sharpen so I'm always trying something different. I've tried many of the sharpening techniques in your poll and I've tried others mentioned on dpreview. I always end up coming back to plain old USM.

The only thing I do differently now is to use USM selectively. I usually dup the layer, sharpen the bottom layer with USM and then use the eraser on the top layer to only sharpen what I want. That way I can repeat this process and sharpen some areas more than others and not sharpen some at all (nice blurry backgrounds.)

Patti

[Terrancelee]

Smart sharpen in CS2. Just trial and error type stuff til I get what I like.

[chakras]

USM: Start with Radius 0.3, Strength: 300, Clipping: 0

[Abel]

Smart Sharpen in CS2 as well... i love that thing!

[JohnT]

PSCS USM. Settings depend on the image itself and what lens was used to shoot it. For example, I have a Sigma lens that runs a little soft so something like 300%, 0.3, 0 works well. However, images shot with my Canon 70-200 f/2.8L tend to need only a little sharpening, maybe 85%, 1.0, 4, or less.

[dbphotos]

USM with different settings for different subjects. I haven't found 1 way that is acceptable across the board.

[saber]

Originally Posted by Patti Edens

First things first: Happy Birthday! And many more...

I'm never happy with how I sharpen so I'm always trying something different. I've tried many of the sharpening techniques in your poll and I've tried others mentioned on dpreview. I always end up coming back to plain old USM.

The only thing I do differently now is to use USM selectively. I usually dup the layer, sharpen the bottom layer with USM and then use the eraser on the top layer to only sharpen what I want. That way I can repeat this process and sharpen some areas more than others and not sharpen some at all (nice blurry backgrounds.)

Patti

Patti,

I use the same method as you do, I focus on the parts of the image you actually want to have sharpened, then dup it, sharp the whole image (with Smart Sharpen or USM) and mask the rest away. This way you do don't have the huge increase of noise in your images around the subject.
In case of a whole image that needs to be shrpened, then it is just playing around with smart sharpen and USM.

Frank