Sharpening... (in HDR workflow)

Do you tend to sharpen before or after making the HDR composite?

Sharpening itself is generally a destructive editing method which is why it (along with noise reduction) are often recomended to the the final stages of a photos workflow in editing. Furthermore the ouput use of the shot itself often defines how much or how little sharpening is needed -a shot for the web needs a different hand toward sharpening than a shot for printing (and then comes the question of what size the print is to be).

For me creating an HDR image or even a tonemapped image the HDR/tonemapping part is the starting point - after RAW processing the composit is the very next stage. Once I have the images merged into a single final work I then start to use other editing processes to bring the best of the shot out - along with sharpening and editing in thefinals. If you are using HDR software to make the composite it is even more important to have done as little editing before as possible as the software needs all the data it can get to produce a good final image - if you cut away some of that data you are running the risk that the software won't be able to produce as clean a finished product at the end.

I agree with overread (and I don't even do HDR :o )

Actually, this post is mainly to mention that although posted in exactly the right forum, which gives context, I made the post title a little more specific to aid future generations searching for this discussion.

Cheers,

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Originally Posted by rpcrowe

Do you tend to sharpen before or after making the HDR composite?

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After, definately.

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Originally Posted by Colin Southern

After, definitely.

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Colin, is that all sharpening, or would you do capture sharpening on the HDR images before combining?

Cheers,
Rick

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Originally Posted by rick55

Colin, is that all sharpening, or would you do capture sharpening on the HDR images before combining?

Cheers,
Rick

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Hi Rick,

I was thinking content/creative sharpening, but I don't think capture sharpening would make any difference either way.

Don't do it; you get a greater dynamic range merging RAW files and I can't save to RAW, so leave sharpening and noise until after merging. :)

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Originally Posted by arith

Don't do it; you get a greater dynamic range merging RAW files and I can't save to RAW, so leave sharpening and noise until after merging. :)

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It's not really an issue when shooting for HDR Steve as you're not relying on dynamic range contained within a single exposure - you obtain the required dynamic range by shooting a bracket of shots.

Hi Guys - I agree with the points made above. I sharpen after the merging process. However, just to confuse matters, with HDR PhotoStudio software (and Artizen?) you can sharpen the HDR merged file itself, before tone-mapping. This may have some advantages although I think this may be an area for some research with test images.

David