Originally Posted by
jprzybyla
Hello Christina, I have been following this thread and wondered about what I read in the quote above. Particularly the no sharpening in RAW and then the sharpening in Photoshop Elements. Sharpening is done to overcome the softening the the Bayer Filter (prevents Moire) and going from analog to digital applies to the image. The amount of sharpening needed is imperceptible and normal viewing, only being seen when viewed at 100% or 1:1. There are three types of sharpening... Capture Sharpening which eliminates the softening I mentioned above that is done in processing the RAW image, Creative Sharpening done selectively to parts of an image ( think eyes on a bird or model ) which I do with the Adjustment Brush in Lighroom 4, and sharpening for printing or posting on the web. I sharpen all of my images the same because I know from experience what works with my camera and is needed. The amount I use is 55, 75 if I need to apply noise reduction. The radius and detail I leave at the default of 1 and 25 respectively. The most important I believe is Masking. That controls what gets sharpened. Only the edges in a image should be sharpened. The masking slider in Lightroom replaces about 20 steps in Photoshop to do the same. Smooth water, clear blue skies, blurred backgrounds should not be sharpened, they should be black when masking an image for sharpening. For how much to sharpen I will defer to Hal Schmitt (whose videos helped me) when he says... just right. Using the ON and Off switch in the Detail Module of Lightroom one should see just a slight sharpening when switching back and forth using the switch. Sharpening cannot correct a soft or out of focus image, they go to the trash bin. Your camera work is fine, post processing needs a little work. Look at images by professional photographers and strive to make yours look like theirs.