# Sharpening in Lightroom - Something I have NOT found on tutorials



## ZapoTeX (Mar 18, 2012)

Hi everyone!

After seeing cgipson1's edits to my theater photos, I realized that I'm far from familiar with Lightroom.

I have a couple of questions on sharpening (but also in general). I'm using LR4, but it is identical to 3 to this regard.

1) In what order does Lightroom apply the edits? I think the order matters, at least for some type of editing, such as sharpening. While I very much appreciate that the editing is not destructive, but I'm curious about how all edits are applied when the image is exported. Is sharpening the last one? (hopefully it is)

2) Does the radius slider refer to the pixels of the RAW or the pixels of the exported image? I guess it's the RAW (otherwise it would be impossible to see any effect before you exported the image). However, if it is the RAW, isn't 3 pixels (the maximum radius) way too little? With a 12 MP camera and 1000 pixel size for the exported image, 3 pixels become 0.7 or so in the final image! That would mean that it is impossible to sharpen with a wider radius?

3) When you export a photo, you can choose whether to apply sharpening or not (web or print, standard or more). Is it at all related to the settings one uses for the sharpening in the "detail" panel? How does it intertact with the previously applied sharpening?

4) I always thought that sharpening needs to be applied AFTER the resize. Then if my purpose is to export a 1000 pixel size for the web, why would I use the sharpening available in the "detail" panel? Especially since it refers to the pixels in the RAW! Is there a way I can control the sharpening applied during the export process in a more sophisticated way than just print or screen and standard or more?

Thanks a lot everyone and sorry for the long and boring post.

Ciao!


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## The_Traveler (Mar 18, 2012)

I have never liked LR one-step-is-good-for-all sharpening.
Anything I'm serious about (which is not often) I export to PS, sharpen, save, resize, resharpen and save from there.


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## cgipson1 (Mar 18, 2012)

I sharpen in PS usually, so not much help with LR! Sorry!


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## ZapoTeX (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks for your replies! I guess that my hope to get away with just LR was wrong.

Bye and thanks again!


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## KmH (Mar 18, 2012)

Lightroom 3's develope module (ACR 6) is organized such that the intent is you start at the top of the panels on the right and work your way down. (LR 4 is ACR 7) (ACR - Adobe Camera Raw. ACR 1st appeared in Photoshop 7 - 10 years ago. Lightroom 1 started shipping Feb 17, 2007).

If you would like more information about how ACR (Camera Raw/Lightroom) works and how to use it  - Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5 

Sharpening is a fairly complex subject and requires an entire book to cover: Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) 

Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image. Lightroom's is designed to assist Photoshop users in managing large quantities of digital images and doing post production work. It is not a file browser like Adobe Bridge (included with CS2, 3, 4, 5), but rather an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos, the same way photographers used to do in the non-digital world.
Precise local edits, the massive range of other possible edits, and finishing an image is the domain of Photoshop CS5 (Photoshop 12).

 CS5 includes Camera Raw (also ACR 6), essentially the same as Lightroom 3's develope module. CS6 will have ACR 7 and who knows what other new capabilites.

CS5 Camera Raw has the same Sharpening panel LR 3 has, plus a sharpening tool, and 5 sharpening filters. That doesn't include the tools to do, high-pass filter sharpening, luminosity blending mode sharpening, LAB color model sharpening, precise masking and several other sharpening techniques.


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## ZapoTeX (Mar 19, 2012)

Hi Keith,

thanks a lot for your very exhaustive explanation! I'll make sure to check out the links about sharpening, I do need to understand more about it.


> Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image.


And this is the problem. I need to start using PS (and learn how to do it well).

Thanks a lot!

Davide


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## MReid (Mar 19, 2012)

"Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image".....really?....that is simply not the case.

Order one of the Scott Kelby books on Lightroom it guides you step by step through pretty much anything you will want to do with Lightroom.

Lightroom does a great job of sharpening and noise control if you know how to use it.

I use one sharpening setting for all people shots.....I use another setting for all non people shots. Takes two seconds to do as many photos as I need all at once. Done.

The number of shots I do any additional work on in Photoshop is probably less that 5% of all the shots I take....and I could probably get away with doing none in Photoshop.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Mar 19, 2012)

MReid said:


> "Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image".....really?....that is simply not the case.
> 
> Order one of the Scott Kelby books on Lightroom it guides you step by step through pretty much anything you will want to do with Lightroom.
> 
> ...



+1

Sometimes I do 10% photoshop but thats about it. Lightroom is the bomb-diggity.


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## Big Mike (Mar 19, 2012)

> 1) In what order does Lightroom apply the edits? I think the order matters, at least for some type of editing, such as sharpening. While I very much appreciate that the editing is not destructive, but I'm curious about how all edits are applied when the image is exported. Is sharpening the last one? (hopefully it is)


Lightroom applies the edits in the 'proper' order (no matter what order you made them in).  That's one of the benefits of the parametric editing system that LR uses.  The order is set primarily by Thomas Knoll.  You may recognize that name, as it's usually the first name in the long list of 'authors' when Photoshop starts up.  He's one of the original designers of Photoshop and now primarily works on ACR and RAW conversion process.  

As for sharpening in LR, keep in mind that there are two places to set your sharpening and two times that it is applied.  I don't know exactly when the 'normal' sharpening is applied, but I do know that the output sharpening is applied after the edits/resize, which is when it should be applied.  That's why you only find it in the export dialog.  



> 3) When you export a photo, you can choose whether to apply sharpening or not (web or print, standard or more). Is it at all related to the settings one uses for the sharpening in the "detail" panel? How does it intertact with the previously applied sharpening?
> 
> 4) I always thought that sharpening needs to be applied AFTER the resize. Then if my purpose is to export a 1000 pixel size for the web, why would I use the sharpening available in the "detail" panel? Especially since it refers to the pixels in the RAW! Is there a way I can control the sharpening applied during the export process in a more sophisticated way than just print or screen and standard or more?


I believe the recommended way to go about it, is to use the details/sharpen adjustments so that the preview looks good to you (at 100%).  
The output sharpening doesn't have much in terms of choice (three settings and three strengths) but I believe that behind those settings, is a fairly 'smart' process that sharpens according to your output size/resolution and intended use.


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## Big Mike (Mar 19, 2012)

KmH said:


> Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image. Lightroom's is designed to assist Photoshop users in managing large quantities of digital images and doing post production work. It is not a file browser like Adobe Bridge (included with CS2, 3, 4, 5), but rather an image management application database which helps in viewing, editing, and managing digital photos, the same way photographers used to do in the non-digital world.
> Precise local edits, the massive range of other possible edits, and finishing an image is the domain of Photoshop CS5 (Photoshop 12).


I would say that is/was more true of Lightroom version 1.  
The new versions of LR (especially 3 and 4) are more geared toward a 'total workflow' for photographers....and from what I hear & see, most photographers use LR for the vast majority of their post processing, and PS CS picks up the rest. 

Of course, PS CS can do practically everything that LR can do, and has been around much longer, so there are many photographers who are still using it as their primary post processing software.  There were also many photographers who hung onto B&W film when color film became popular...and of course, many photographers hung onto film when digital came around.  

And yes, PS CS can do way, way more than LR can do.  But some might argue that the stuff that is done there, is photo editing/retouching etc., as opposed to photo processing.  Semantics really.  The point is that most of what most photographers (not digital artists) need to do, can be done in Lightroom, from start to finish.


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## jwbryson1 (Mar 19, 2012)

2WheelPhoto said:


> MReid said:
> 
> 
> > "Lightroom is not designed to produce a finished image".....really?....that is simply not the case.
> ...



I have to agree.  Sorry.  LR3 is sufficient for most final editing.  I'm sure there is much more you can do with PS5 but I don't think they are both necessary for "final" editing of an image.


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## ZapoTeX (Mar 19, 2012)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! This forum turns every noob question into a great insightful discussion.




> Order one of the Scott Kelby books on Lightroom it guides you step by step through pretty much anything you will want to do with Lightroom.


Great suggestion! I need some guidance on LR.



> Sometimes I do 10% photoshop but thats about it.


5%, 10%... you both mentioned pretty low percentages. I'll try to refine my LR skills and I'll see whether I can get away with 0% (and the occasional Photomatix for HDR).



> Lightroom applies the edits in the 'proper' order (no matter what order you made them in). That's one of the benefits of the parametric editing system that LR uses.


Exactly what I wanted to hear!  Thanks for clearing my doubt.



> I don't know exactly when the 'normal' sharpening is applied, but I do know that the output sharpening is applied after the edits/resize, which is when it should be applied. That's why you only find it in the export dialog.


I hardly ever used the "normal" sharpening. I mostly do it from the export dialog. I'll see what happens when you use a combination of both.



> I believe that behind those settings, is a fairly 'smart' process that sharpens according to your output size/resolution and intended use.


I'll experiment some more. It's very well possible that for some type of photos, even if I'm keeping it on screen, the best setting is "glossy paper". I'll try to understand the differences among the settings

Thanks everyone again, very educational thread for me!


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## Big Mike (Mar 19, 2012)

> I believe that behind those settings, is a fairly 'smart' process that sharpens according to your output size/resolution and intended use.



Keith Mentioned it above, the book Amazon.com: Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) (9780321637550): Bruce Fraser, Jeff Schewe: Books
was developed by the same guys who designed the sharpening routines that LR uses.


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## KmH (Mar 19, 2012)

Yep. Bruce passed in late 2006 but Bruce was a founding member of Pixel Genius, LLC. Winners | Photoshop Hall of Fame - Bruce Fraser

As Mike mentions Pixel Genius produced the software that is Lightroom's Develope module Sharpening panel.

So you can learn from the experts who litterally wrote the book(s), like I have, or you can rely on other less expert resources.


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## The_Traveler (Mar 19, 2012)

Let's agree to disagree.

I agree that much of the time, when lighting is good, the setting is pretty standard and/or we are batching out work, that LR is fine.
But...
LR can't know when I don't want to sharpen in the shadows in the OOF areas or when I do want to do some special local area contrast enhancement to bring out texture in a fabric. 

Bruce Fraser wrote about multi-stage  sharpening and in his  earlier book 'Image Sharpening with Adobe PS CS2' he has a sub-chapter on creative strategies in sharpening that is specifically directed at non-global techniques.
If I want to really make an image perfect or make some changes that  aren't global, and that includes sharpening, I always go to PS.


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## The_Traveler (Mar 19, 2012)

"_*We sometimes want to call extra attention to an element in an image
by making it appear a little sharper than its surroundings. Head shots
often benefit from a little extra sharpening around the eyes, for example.

I call this kind of sharpening &#8220;creative sharpening&#8221; because unlike the
other kinds of sharpening I&#8217;ve discussed so far-source-sensitive, content-
sensitive, and output-sensitive sharpening-creative sharpening can&#8217;t be
automated. It requires manual application and human decision making.

Figure 2-26 shows two images before creative sharpening on the left,
and after creative sharpening on the right. On the top image, I added a
little extra sharpening to the eyes and hair. On the bottom image, I added
extra sharpening to me Wall to reveal the cracks and texture, but not to
the doors or the ground.

There are really no hard and fast rules, beyond those imposed by good
taste, regarding creative sharpening...............*_"

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe PS CS2 by Bruce Fraser, p 70, 2007


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