# sharpening, beyond Lightroom



## Newmarket2 (Nov 8, 2014)

Are there add-ins or other programs (other than Photoshop) that do a better job of sharpening than Lightroom?


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## ErikT (Nov 8, 2014)

Maybe you should upgrade to LR 5.6.
i'm pretty satisfied with its job.


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## Newmarket2 (Nov 8, 2014)

I'm running 5.6.
I'm looking for more.


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## Packhorse-4 (Nov 8, 2014)

So... "Better" is a pretty subjective term, but there are several stand alone programs and Lightroom Plug-ins that are highly regarded for their sharpening tools.  The Nik collection of plug-ins has an excellent set of Lightroom plugins, including "Sharpener Pro", while you are there be sure to check out Color Efex Pro and Silver Efex Pro as well.  You should also consider the Macphun photo software.  They have "Focus 2" and "Tonality" which are both getting great reviews.  

Looks like you are on an HP so the Macphun may not be an option for you unless you are planning on switching to a Mac.  :~)


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## Newmarket2 (Nov 8, 2014)

John,
That's exactly what I was looking for....and if you have subjective opinions or personal experiences to share, that would help me sort through the options.  Thanks.
Michael
...and, no Mac and no plan for a Mac either.  I have an iPad and while it's great for certain things, my conclusion is that some people are genetically wired for Apple and some for MS and I know which I am.


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## clee01l (Nov 8, 2014)

As John says "Better" is a subjective term.  LR does not work miracles. GIGO.  I find that LR is adequate for sharpening but does not work well when you try to over sharpen.  And you are wasting your time trying to sharpen when the camera did not achieve a focus in the first place. 
There are a couple of Plugins that have a sharpening component. The Nik Collection and Perfect Photo Suite are two that I've used. TopazLabs also offers Plugins that are highly rated. None of these are free.  And IMO hard to justify any incremental improvement over raw free built in tool.


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## Tony Jay (Nov 8, 2014)

To reinforce some points that Cletus made:

Lightroom actually has amazingly robust and functional sharpening tools.
This is not a one-eyed statement from a fanboi.
Lightroom does have some well known weaknesses but this is not one of them.

Using these tools requires a bit of understanding though.
Your post does not give me any insight into where you are with photography in general and post-processing in particular.
If terms such as "capture sharpening", "creative sharpening", and "output sharpening" are not familiar to you then post specific questions in this regard and we will help you through to understanding.
There is also an intimate relationship between luminance noise reduction and sharpening - so much so that the luminance noise reduction slider is often referred to as the fifth sharpening slider.

There are certain, limited, situations with regard to creative sharpening where another application that can deliver a regional sharpening solution using layers and masks that do a better job than Lightroom.

Tony Jay


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## Newmarket2 (Nov 8, 2014)

All very helpful.
My conclusion is that I need to dive deeper into LR sharpening before I spend $$ on other products.
Can someone recommend some tutorials/articles that really explain technique and method, etc...

And, as for my level of expertise, I've been shooting for 10 years, since I retired.  I love it, but I'm not the kind of guy who shoots 4 times every week.  I tend towards workshops, trips, etc.  I always shoot RAW and almost entirely with a D300 and 18-200 VR lens.  I spend a lot of time post-processing and have my own workflow which has served me well but I'm sure could be improved.  I almost always sharpen.


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## clee01l (Nov 9, 2014)

Newmarket2 said:


> All very helpful.
> My conclusion is that I need to dive deeper into LR sharpening before I spend $$ on other products.
> Can someone recommend some tutorials/articles that really explain technique and method, etc...


 This two part article helped turned the corner for me on sharpening in LR.  Although it references LR2, I think it is still valid. 
http://x-equals.com/blog/sharpening-in-lightroom-part-1-of-2/


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## Tony Jay (Nov 9, 2014)

Michael lets go through the concepts and then delve into the workflow details last:

Capture sharpening - *every* image needs capture sharpening. The reason for this is that the process of turning a RAW image into something visible requires using a demosaicing algorithm that converts the colours captured in the Bayer array into recognisable colours. A degree of edge softening is introduced by this process. Capture sharpening is a global process and is merely meant to reverse the softening introduced by demosaicing and no more.

Creative sharpening - many images have areas that require specific sharpening treatment while other areas may not. A good example is that of a portrait where it is very common to want to sharpen up the eye lashes, eyelids, and eyes while not wanting to sharpen up the skin of the face and so accentuate skin blemishes. However, even in a landscape image it may be useful to sharpen up an important foreground object more than the surrounding parts of the image.

Output sharpening - there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach here. Output sharpening is altered by the output medium (say print medium or electronic display device) and output size, as well as whether the image is uprezzed or downrezzed. It sounds complicated, and it is, but Lightroom has, in its algorithms, all the output sharpening algorithms from Photokit Sharpener II that do all the heavy duty lifting for you. In some of the output modules you will not even be aware of it but the output sharpening is nonetheless there. The Print module has the most obvious interaction where several inputs are asked for.

So much for the theory then - how does one incorporate this knowledge into one's workflow?

Capture sharpening should not be done without reference to the luminance noise reduction slider.
Luminance noise reduction will always reduce the level of fine detail in an image in other words the very stuff we are trying to preserve and accentuate by sharpening.
Luminance noise reduction works simply by "smearing" fine detail to homogenise the tone of adjacent pixels.
Most images do require some luminance noise reduction but the amount required can be reduced by clever usage of the masking slider.
The masking slider applies a very clever and sophisticated edge mask that allows any sharpening to be applied to edges rather than areas of homogenous tone or colour.
The result of this is that it minimises the unwanted effect of enhancing visible noise by sharpening.
I use the edge masking all the time to reduce the visible effect of noise.
This, in turn, reduces the amount of luminance noise reduction required, and this, in turn, reduces the amount of sharpening required and the unwanted effects of over sharpening that causes unpleasant haloing.

Any sharpening (and luminance noise reduction) adjustments should be done with image at 1:1. It is also helpful (I personally think this is mandatory) to be looking only at tone and not colour while doing the adjustments.
This is easily achieved by simultaneously pressing the alt (W) or option (M) keys while dragging the sliders.
The image converts to a black-and-white image allowing the effect of the sliders to be easily identified.

Lets look at the various sharpening sliders and see how they work.
*Amount* - this varies the intensity of sharpening. What sharpening is doing at the pixel level is to accentuate the tones on either side of an edge. The darker side of the edge is darkened and the lighter side lightened. This makes the edge more visible to the eye.

*Radius *- this determines how far away from the edge the effect mentioned above is applied. Generally, in an image with high frequency detail a small radius is used to limit the effect of sharpening one edge interfering with the sharpening being applied to another, closely adjacent, edge. An example of a high frequency detail image would be a landscape image with lots of detail. Images that do well with a larger radius, in general, are portraits where sharpening with a large radius in conjunction with the masking slider will limit the accentuation of unwanted skin blemishes.

*Detail* - this slider is somewhat complex and therefore easily misunderstood. This slider mediates two different effects. At low values the slider applies a very sophisticated mask that acts to suppress haloes that might be generated by the amount slider. If higher values are applied a different effect, also mask mediated, is applied that is very similar to the effect of the unsharp sharpening mask used in Photoshop. Above a value of about 25 halo suppression ceases and the unsharp sharpening comes increasingly into play.

*Masking* - as already noted the masking slider applies a very sophisticated edge mask that, at increasingly higher amounts, will limit the effects of sharpening to edges thus limiting unwanted effects of sharpening such as haloes and noise accentuation in areas with no edges.

All the sliders work interactively, and so manipulating one slider will change what is required with another slider.
Any one image will probably need slightly different treatment to another image but the following general rules hold true:
*High frequency detail image* - high(er) amount, low(er) radius, high(er) detail, less masking, and minimal luminance noise reduction (if possible).
*Low frequency detail image *- lowe(er) amount, high(er) radius, low(er) detail, more masking, and as little luminance noise reduction as possible.

The ultimate judge of what to do is *always* an aesthetic one. If it looks good then it is good and that should be the goal.

There are other image manipulations that can affect apparent sharpness (accutance) of an image.
Overall image contrast has an effect as well as the clarity slider that manipulates local contrast as opposed to global contrast.
It is a good idea to optimise an image using the sliders in the Basic sub-panel before proceeding to sharpening and noise reduction.
In this regard the same rules apply if Tone Curve manipulations are required.

Using the adjustment brush to reduce the apparent sharpness of unimportant areas of an image using negative (as opposed to positive) clarity adjustment and/or reducing sharpening via the adjustment brush can be helpful in accentuating the apparent accutance of important parts of an image.

A useful exercise is to apply, in turn, to a single image the sharpening presets already present in Lightroom.
They are found in the Presets sub-panel under Lightroom General Presets and are called Sharpening - scenic and Sharpening - faces, respectively.
Pick images that have high frequency detail and low frequency detail and scrutinise the effects.
Look at the various changes to the settings.

After a time it will be very easy to know roughly how to sharpen up images and quick and easy to fine tune the result.
It may be possible to record your own sharpening and noise reduction presets according to camera and ISO after a time that do most of the work for you.

Creative sharpening - in Lightroom the adjustment brush can selectively apply sharpening to brushed areas. This is very helpful but is still somewhat limited because all that is happening is that at the local level it is like changing the amount slider in the Sharpening sub-panel without been able to manipulate any of the other sliders. An ultimate solution here would be to have every slider available for manipulation in the adjustment brush and other regional tools in Lightroom like the gradient filter. Another limitation is that one does not have access to the alt/option key to do those edits in monochrome.
So, for the reasons mentioned above it may be better to use another application for some creative sharpening interventions.

Output sharpening - I will concentrate on the Print module to explain the process.
As alluded to the algorithm is rather complex but luckily the information that Lightroom needs from one is simple.
The algorithm needs to know the final output resolution - this is set by one deciding how big to print an image and whether one uprezzes or not in the case of larger prints.
Lightroom also needs to know the kind of media one is printing to.
For the purposes there are only two choices - glossy or matte.
Any glossy or semi-gloss paper will make glossy the selection while any matte paper or canvas will mandate matte as the selection.
There are three options governing the degree of output sharpening applied - low, standard, or high.
Generally, if one is conservative with capture/creative sharpening then standard or high may be better, or, if one is aggressive with capture/creative sharpening then low or standard is probably the way to go.
As with everything else the proof is in the pudding and what looks good is good and so some experimentation is always required in order to calibrate the aesthetic effect.
Using this information Lightroom will appropriately apply output sharpening to a print.

Output sharpening is also applied in all the other output modules like Slideshow etc but no external input is required for Lightroom to appropriately apply the output sharpening.

The export dialog also has options for output sharpening.
Select one of three media - glossy, matte, or screen.
Then select the level of sharpening - low, standard, or high.

That, in a nutshell, is sharpening A to Z.

Tony Jay


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## Jimmsp (Nov 9, 2014)

Tony Jay said:


> Michael lets go through the concepts and then delve into the workflow details last:
> 
> Capture sharpening - *every* image needs capture sharpening. The reason for this is that the process of turning a RAW image into something visible requires using a demosaicing algorithm that converts the colours captured in the Bayer array into recognisable colours. A degree of edge softening is introduced by this process. Capture sharpening is a global process and is merely meant to reverse the softening introduced by demosaicing and no more.
> 
> ...


An excellent overview and summary.
Personally, I use LR for all my capture sharpening, and most of my creative sharpening, and all of my output sharpening.
I use Topaz Detail for the creative sharpening for the few photos that I print or enter into a competition. 

Jim


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