8 Replies Latest reply: Jul 12, 2007 12:43 PM by Scott in Texas RSS

    Sharpening in LR 1.1

    Matthew A Kraus Community Member
      1. What is the difference between the sharpening in LR 1.1 develop module (which I gather is like capture sharpening) and Capture Sharpening in PhotoKit Sharpener?
      2. What is the prefered workflow: do intial global changes & sharpening in LR and then edit in PS for other changes vs do initial global changes in LR and then edit in PS and do PhotoKit Capture Sharpener there?

      Thanks,
      Matthew Kraus
        • 1. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
          Community Member
          As one of the developers of PhotoKit Sharpener I can tell you that Bruce Fraser's views (and a couple of techniques) were incorporated in CR 4.1/LR 1.1 because Adobe hired Bruce as a consultant. However, all it does is potentially replace Capture Sharpening...not Creative nor Output Sharpening. I think the Output stage will come...but the Creative stage that requires local application will be tougher.

          I do capture shaprening in CR/LR now and then export to Photoshop for final soft proofing and output sharpening and bring it back into Lightroom for printing. For more info on the sharpening in CR 4.1 and LR 1.1 see: About Camera Raw 4.1.
          • 2. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
            Jeff - do you usually print PS? or do you re-import from PS to LR after Output sharpening and print from LR?
            • 3. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
              Community Member
              I generally print from Lightroom now that my entire print collection (except a couple of files that re over 10K) has now been imported...all the print files have been output sharpened-with the sharpening on layers in the event I need to change the print size.
              • 4. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
                Matthew A Kraus Community Member
                Jeff - I currently save my files and major changes such as master files, 8x10sharpened, 11x14 sharpened, etc as additional files on my HD with underscore suffixes and new names. This gives me security of having all of the entire files on my HD, but sure takes up a lot of space. Do you recommend continuing to do this sort of process or do you just now save changes as metadata changes in LR, perhaps as VC's, and only keep original on HD?

                Thanks,
                Matthew Kraus
                • 5. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
                  don solomon Community Member
                  Matthew,

                  I do exactly what you do when I edit for clients--everything they originally paid for is archived as is! Takes up real estate but saves $ in the long run.

                  But for my own work, anything I print or sell is treated as above, but all other work stays in metadata now until such time as I have a definite use for it. I do have archives of my own past work (in several formats for each image sometimes with identical names and differing extensions) that I access when needed. I have no intention of bringing all that into LR except on a 'have need' basis. I think it is important to keep the DB (or DBs) as small as practical.

                  Needless to say, all the above work, clients, and my own, gets backed up to offline raid 0 and to offline DVDs atored in a fireproof safe offsite. That includes a DB back up for the lightroom work each time I finish a batch. I should add that most of my work is done in Bridge/ACR/PS because of faster workflow. But I am testing the Library function of LR to determine its suitability as a
                  DAM and as an app for reworking small batches or single archived images already developed in ACR previously.
                  • 6. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
                    Community Member
                    Jeff: Have you played with Qimage? I printed an image from Lr (OS X) and exported that image to a Windows machine and printed it via QImage to the same printer. In QImage I toned down sharpening from its 5 default to 3. The Qimage print looked stunning - not over-sharpened - and with the proper saturation. The Lr (OS X) print was slightly washed out and duller. Do you think this is strictly a problem due to output sharpening in Lr?

                    Note: Both my Win/OS X machine color management is correct

                    P.S. - can we carry this printing dialog offline? can you email me?
                    • 7. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
                      Jeff:

                      You write:
                      "I do capture shaprening in CR/LR now and then export to Photoshop for final soft proofing and output sharpening and bring it back into Lightroom for printing."

                      I was very interested to hear about your workflow, as I was recently trying to sort this out. I just posted on a different thread (somehow missed this one) that my prints in LR are coming out significantly lighter than when the same master files (created prior to LR -- maybe that's the issue) printed from CS2 or CS3.

                      Any thoughts as to what's up with that?

                      Thanks for any input.

                      Paula
                      http://www.lernerphoto.com
                      • 8. Re: Sharpening in LR 1.1
                        Scott in Texas Community Member
                        Antonio,

                        I do all of my cropping, print sharpening, and printing from QImage.

                        I have QImage set up as the 2nd Editor. As you know, QImage reads PSD's so if I'm just doing a few, I just select the PSD's in LR's grid view and "edit" in QImage.

                        I print to JPG's and send them to my lab for printing.

                        Scott