Sharpening Your Photographs

[mitch]

Interested in learning about sharpening. I produced both an eBook and a DVD on sharpening that includes full-size samples for every photo, complete with layers so you can study them.

http://www.thelightsright.com/sharpeningyourphotographs

[Gale]

Going to save my pennies for that

[engineer]

Got the e-book and found it well worth the cost.
Les

[sparty627]

Mitch,

Just got your ebook and videos on sharpening.  I have a question.  You describe the process of creating a layer for shaprening (the "Photoshop two-step"), alt-ctrl-shift-N and alt-ctrl-shift-E.  How is this different than simply highlighting the layer you want to copy and hitting ctrl-J?  It seems to be the same, but perhaps I am missing something here.

Patrick

[admin]

Hi, Patrick.

That's a good question.

Ctrl/Cmd + J copies just the current layer. For example, if that is an adjustment layer, it will just duplicate the adjustment layer.

Alt/Opt + Ctrl/Cmd + N followed by Alt/Opt + Ctrl/Cmd + E makes a new empty layer then stamps (i.e., makes a copy) of the visible result from all of the layers underneath.

The idea to is make a layer that is a snapshot of what's currently visible. Ctrl/Cmd + J will not accomplish that.

I hope you find the eBook/video to be helpful!

Cheers,

Mitch

[sparty627]

Mitch,

I am continuing to work through your ebook and videos, and I have another question.  I shoot wildlife, mostly birds, which means that many of my images are severely cropped.  I have a Canon 40D, which falls in your high-definition category. I am wondering whether, if I am going to be cropping an image down to 25% or even less of the original image, I need to use sharpening settings for lower-resolution cameras. Thanks.

Patrick

[mitch]

A good question.

I would apply capture sharpening at high resolution. For output sharpening, I would use the resolution of the intended output device.

You should not apply output sharpening until after you crop and apply any resampling.

Cheers,

Mitch