# Sharpening photographs



## Jeannie_Cee (Sep 17, 2012)

Hi there

When I sharpen my photos to an amount of 125 for example, the photos are crisp and sharp on the LR screen but when I export and and view the photos on my normal screen they look soft. Even before editing the photos look clear and in focus. I shoot in RAW all the time. Could it be that the files are so large in size the computer screen compresses the resolution?

Please help! I am desperate.


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## RikkFlohr (Sep 17, 2012)

What are your sharpening settings you are using in the Export dialog?


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## Jeannie_Cee (Sep 17, 2012)

Well I'm not using the output sharpening option on the export screen although I have ticked and unticked it before to see any difference but the images are still not how I want them to look. I'm just exporting as jpeg and nothing more. I haven't changed any settings since I first installed LR. The quality does say 240 pix. Is that a problem?

I'm worried because it's so slow


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## Tony Jay (Sep 17, 2012)

Jeannie it is probably best to view sharpening as a three phase process.

The sharpening you are referring to is input sharpening. This should be done to all images to some degree. The goal of input sharpening is to reverse the slight softening that is the result of analog to digital conversion and the effect this has on edges.
Creative sharpening is a subsequent process. A good example would be regional sharpening of the eyes in a portrait.
Output sharpening is the last sharpening step and is dependent on the output medium so the approach is different if the image is being prepared for printing versus displayed on a web page.

With regards to your specific sharpening workflow you would need to provide the detail of what you do before more specific advice could be given.

BTW the true state of your image with regard to estimating sharpness is very difficult to appreciate on your monitor. Perhaps you need to view a couple of your images as prints on a glossy or semi-gloss paper to really work out if the image is sharp or not. Certainly viewing your image at 1:1 on the monitor will not help your estimation of sharpness because the resolution of your monitor is incapable of showing the true resolution of the image size-for-size.
I think it is likely that your images are much sharper than you realize. I only really appreciated this reality when I started printing really large images (A2 and bigger) and found unbelievably preserved detail, resolution, and sharpness

Regards

Tony Jay


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## Jeannie_Cee (Sep 17, 2012)

Thanks Tony.

I recently printed photographs to A1 size and the sharpening was only 25 and that was set from a a preset I used. It was awesome and I was very impressed. Now when I adjust the sharpening amount to 50 or to 125 for example it looks perfect on the screen as I said before but viewing it on my normal pc screen is another story, When I zoom in on the image I can tell that it has been sharpened so perhaps it is the screen resolution that does not do the photos any justice.

How can I speed up lightroom. It is running very slow.  I hope my reply makes sense.


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## Brad Snyder (Sep 17, 2012)

"It looks perfect on the screen, but when viewing it on my normal screen is another story"

Before we make any progress here, that will have to be explained. What 2 screens are we talking about? How are you viewing the images in these two apparently identical scenarios?


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 17, 2012)

Hi Jeannie, welcome to the forum!  One more question - what software are you viewing the exported photos in?


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## Jeannie_Cee (Sep 18, 2012)

Sorry I should be more specific. It's when I view the photos with Microsoft picture editor on the computer.


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## Jeannie_Cee (Sep 18, 2012)

Sorry I should be more specific. It's when I view the photos with Microsoft picture editor on the computer.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 18, 2012)

Does anyone else have Microsoft Picture Editor installed to be able to check the preview resampling?  I've certainly seen it with the Windows Picture Viewer, as well as Preview on the Mac.  The short version is only trust 100% view in any program when judging sharpening.  And 125 is way too high!


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## kaymann (Sep 21, 2012)

"Microsoft Photo Editor" is not a integrated program of Windows but instead was bundled with MS Office Suite.  I was discontinued as of Office 2003 and replaced with "Microsoft Office *Picture* Manager" I could dig it up at work later today but it would be while....


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## Paul Treacher (Sep 26, 2012)

I've just had a look using Picture Manager 2010 and pictures display as expected at any zoom level. I agree with Victoria - 125 is way too much.


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