concerns about sharpening

Questions / comments for you all

I now have my new K10D and lots of DNG files which I open in CS, Silkypix etc... on doing so the software applies a level of sharpening. I then save the file for later (as a new DNG to preserve original).

Later I go back and open the new file (say in CS to make adjustments etc...)

Question is
1. Should I set the sharpening to zero upon re-opening to prevent double sharpening?

2. Should I have sharpened the image in the first instance? I read somewhere that sharpening should only be applied once editing has taken place.

3. If the answer to Q2 is no then should I only sharpen the image when I'm happy with it in all other respects then never edit it again (except for perhaps cropping)?

Thanks worried of Wiltshire

Sharpening is the last thing you should do.

Rodger,
If you take a look over at The Light's Right Studio they take a very good approach to sharpening.
There are three stages:
1. Capture
2. Creative
3. Output

Capture sharpening should just give a little "bite" to the image, trying to undo the softness caused by the Bayer colour filter over the CCD. In Silkypix, for instance, you'd want something like "Natural Fine" taste for the K10D - nothing major. There should be no halos or obvious sharpening at this stage.

Creative sharpening is where you want to highlight particular elements. For instance, in portraiture I'll often do extra sharpening around the eyes (by duplicating the layer, slightly oversharpening, and then using a layer mask to control exactly how much and where).

Finally, Output sharpening is designed to get the best possible result from the intended medium. If it's for web, I'll use something like USM at 100%, 0.5 radius, 0 threshold (after having resized it to 1000 pixels). For inkjet print you need to oversharpen so you can see the halos at 200% view.


Just bear in mind that once you sharpen it's hard to undo it. As a consequence, I tend to keep the original capture-sharpened image as the background in Photoshop and duplicate onto a new layer for further sharpening. I'll save the PSD file with layers (which can be 150 to 200Mb with the K10D and the kind of editing I do), and then flatten and output sharpen for each type of print (remembering NOT to save and overwrite the original PSD file )

BTW, the link is: http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tutorials-pdf.htm
You want the PDF "Put a Fine Edge on Your Sharpening Skills" - there's the PDF and a learning gallery too.

EDIT: Just crossing the ether... sharpen a little in Silkypix, sharpen a little if you use Adobe's Camera Raw to open the DNG. Follow with any creative sharpening you want to do. Then flatten, resize and sharpen for output (and as you say, don't do any further editing on that version of the image). I would always apply a little discrete sharpening on opening the DNG for the reasons I outlined

Hope that helps!
Matt

Thanks Matt
Just what the doctor ordered

Why do you do this? RAW adjustments are nondestructive and can be reverted back to camera default settings so no preserving is needed.

I guess it depends on how you process your images and what final effect you want, but my observations are that I never find a need to sharpen beyond 100% for an A3 print and also that sharpening is the very last action in the process. When I do use RAW (and it may surprise you that I do sometimes) I do not sharpen at all at that stage.

The variations possible are endless but if you sharpen last you won't go far wrong.

Quite right - I forgot that you've saved me one step and lots of drive space.

Just have to remember now not to clear the raw cache