Output Sharpening for Blurb?

Thinking I'll try the Blurb book service. No problem capture sharpening in Lr. But what to do about output sharpening? Is there a way to take advantage of the output options in the Print module and move output sharpened images to a desktop folder? Or must I run everything through Photoshop?

Yes, John. I didn't see any difference except for the preview window in the Detail panel of Develop. Is that not still just capture sharpening? I assumed output for printed pages would still be available only in Print mode, or in Photoshop.
If anyone has tried outputting for book-making software, I'd appreciate hearing about your experience. Best-practice sharpening for these seems a little murky to me. I'm wading through Blurb FAQs and forums, but guess I'll probably need to make a test book to see what happens. Mainly, I wanted to try something other than an Apple book to avoid having to run everything through iPhoto or, heaven forfend, buy Aperture.

Similar Messages

Output Sharpening for Screen Still Not Sharpening?

There's obvious sharpening differences for matte and glossy, high and low, but when I export JPG for screen, using Lightroom 2.4, PS2 shows no difference between the two layers using difference blend mode.
John Gregson

I just tested it and it appears to work normally now although the difference is still a little too subtle for my taste. You should use Apply Image in Photoshop and set it to substract to really see it. Then you use a levels adjustment layer to see the differences. I see a very clear difference in sharpening. In 2.3 there used to be no difference whatsoever between standard and high. Below is the result for substracting a high output sharpened image (screen) minus a standard output sharpening followed by a levels operation at 100 and 149. Clearly the high sharpening sharpens more than the standard.

Output sharpening

Does Aperture 2 support output sharpening for version exports or for prints only?
Thank you

I know that sharpening should best be done after resizing. But frankly I never bothered. I have no intention of re-evaluating every image by deciding how much sharpening I want to apply after creating a version in another another size of it.
And for contrast, I very much doubt your argument. When I watch an image in portrait orientation on my 15" MBP in full-screen view it is 900 px high, I might export it for the web 800 px high. To display it at 900 px high, it has been rescaled to 900 x 600 px. I do my contrast evaluation and adjustment on that rescaled image. Why would I bother to evaluate this judgement again for a 800 x 533 px??? Dito for the sharpening.
Well, and if I were to rely on any automatic sharpening algorithms and contrast routines to optimize an image, I would not spent at least 10 mins on every image in Aperture.
Again, I agree, ideally one would apply only little sharpening in a raw converter, convert the image into the final size and apply sharpening there. But again once more, if eyeballing an image at 900 x 600 px in Aperture is not good enough a measure for an intended 800 x 533 px image, then I am sorry, but I don't care.

Sharpening for Slideshow

Assuming that most images are not sent to Photoshop or other programs for sharpening, what are your recommendations for producing optimally sharpened images for presentation in the Slideshow Module of Lightroom?

Jao
Thank you for your response to this. I often read and benefit from your other posts also.
I am confused about this. When I sharpen an image using Lightroom 1.4.1, the sharpening appears in Slideshow and Library at all zoom levels. However, LR sharpening is considered to be Capture sharpening only.
Since I will be viewing my images in LR using Library and/or Slideshow as my "Output," it seemed to me that an approach could be to do Capture sharpening, make other LR adjustments, and then do another round of LR sharpening as Output Sharpening for viewing in the Library and/or Slideshow. Does this sound efficacious?
What I am trying to achieve is the best possible display of my images without leaving LR.

Sharpening for web gallery output?

I'm just wondering what you all do to sharpen your images for output to web galleries, since LR doesn't offer this as a possibility.
I guess one way would be to open the images from the gallery folder and do a batch process in Photoshop. But I'm curious to know if there's a simpler or more efficient way to go about it.

[email protected] schrieb:
> I also often post images larger than 800x800 that need a bit more
> sharpening. Herb, would you be willing to share a bit more about
> droplets and how you integrate them with your LR workflow?
In PS, using "Droplets" one can generate operating system level
executables. They provide a mean to hand image files over to "actions"
(macros) recorded in PS.
In order to create an "export action" for LR, one would roughly do the
following:
- In PS, record an action which does the following:
* Apply USM with suitable parameters (like radius 0.9, amount 30,
treshold 3) to an image already opened in PS.
* Save for web/save as JPEG (target folder will be hardcoded and thus
fixed).
* Close image without saving changes.
- In PS, select File / Automate / Droplet and create a new droplet
* Choose an executable file name
* select the previously recorded action
* choose target: none (Since we already saved files to JPEG)
- Put the generated executable or a shortcut/link to it into LR's
"export action" folder.
For export with output sharpen, in LR:
- File / Export
- Choose some target folder (will be fixed; for temporary image files)
- file format: PSD or TIFF
- color space: sRGB (for web export)
- maximum size: target size as needed, e.G. 1280x1024 for SXGA files
- export action: select the previously created droplet
Save these settings as a new export preset (like "SXGA").
From now on, one would just need to export using that preset. LR would
render already resized PSD files, start PS, batch sharpen them and save
JPEG files to the directory chosen while recording the PS action.
Herb

Default HTML Gallery: How to make Slider for 'thumb.width' & apply output sharpening on thumbnails

Hi,
I am in the process of teaching myself the LRWebengine by modifing the file 'galleryInfo.lrweb' which is default HTML Gallery.
I am intensively reading and using SDK 3.0.
Not sure whether I am asking in the right forum but give it a try anyway.
What I'd like to achive is to have a slider allowing to change the width of the thumbnails in the section for Grid Pages and later to apply output sharpening on thumbnails.
Currently the size for the thumbnails width & height is set to 130px (["photoSizes.thumb.height"] = 130)
There is no problem to change the size for all thumbnails manually by changing this and its associated values at lines 96, 110, 114, 134, 138 in galleryInfo.lrweb.
What I'd like to find out is the following:
- how to properly include a slider row in the section for 'Grid pages' (presumably right after line 358)
- how to create a variable (eg. $sliderThumbWidth) from the selected slider-value
- so that this variable can be used to replace the current preset values at lines (96, 110, 114, 134, 138)
- later and in addition, apply sharpening 'high' (level=3) on output for thumbnails
First I thought I'd be able to figure it out by myself, but after two days of fiddling it seems that I can't. I am stuck with the creation of the variable '$sliderThumbWidth' and assume that the new 'slider_row' is not coded properly.
Hope someone can give me hints and will help me out on this.
Thanks for your attention.

... have a slider allowing to change the width of the thumbnails in the section for Grid Pages ...
Got this one worked out alright. Yeah, thumbs can now be dynamically adjusted in the WEB-UI.
Remains the problem to find out how to apply output sharpening on thumbnails.
Has someone ideas how to achieve this?
Thanks for replies.
Message was edited by: snahphoto

Output sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and Photoshop CS5

Output sharpening in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and Photoshop CS5
I want to do two-pass sharpening - capture and output - with output capture done just before I print. I do the initial (capture) sharpening in the ACR Detail/Sharpening panel, with Amount slider set to, for example, 100. Then, I open the image to PS CS5 as a Smart Object, and use layers and masks for further editting.
My question is, can I go back to ACR for the final (output) sharpening pass? When I re-open the file in ACR, the Sharpening Amount slider is back to zero, but the other three sliders are still at the settings I used at the start of the process, i.e., the capture sharpening. If I again set the Amount slider to a positive value, then again open the image in PS for printing, will my second pass through the ACR Sharpening panel take effect - will it accumulate on top of the initial sharpening?
By the way, the reason I want do output sharpening in ACR rather than, say, PS Unsharp Mask, is so I can use the Masking slider in ACR, which is much easier than the comparable techniques available in PS. I am aware that some say you should not do any masking for the output sharpening. I'd like to though.
Thanks for ideas.

This is pretty much the way I do it, and I also always found ACR sharpening superior to anything in Photoshop. There is the "sharpen for output" in ACR, but you have little control over it.
The tricky part is feeding the file through ACR a second time. I don't think re-opening the Smart Object will do anything more than you could have done the first time. I do it with a rendered TIFF, and have an intricate set of actions that I run in the Image Processor Pro. It's a mess, and you don't want to know.
The frustrating part is how to action ACR. I just can't figure it out. It'll work, and then I have to change some setting and the action stops working. I suspect you need a script, but so far I haven't found any.
So I've come to a compromise: I first process to TIFF in a temp folder, then I bulk open them in ACR to sharpen, then a second process to finish up.
For less critical files I have a sharpening action that comes close, involving edge masks and blend ifs, using smart sharpen which tends to preserve edges better than unsharp mask, and with less accumulation of noise.
Bottom line: I'm also very interested in further comments to this. BTW, I recently bought Lightroom 4, so maybe there is a posibility using that in a mixed workflow.

Capture Sharpening for Canon 1Ds II

Hi. I have been away from my photography for some time and am slowly coming back up to speed on things new. For now my focus is on capture sharpening for images shot with my 1Ds II. Previously I used Photokit with variable results and an action combining Smart Sharpen and the sharpen feature embedded in Reduce Noise. (I had, in fact, had a number of discussions with Bruce Fraser a long time back about the results I was getting with Photokit and the 1Ds II. It was my disappointment with the results from Photokit that led to a preference for the results of the SS/RN action.)
I've just read the following thread with interest:
http://forums.adobe.com/click.jspa?searchID=250337&objectType=2&objectID=1207380
It seems things have moved along a lot. I currently have CS3 (ACR 4.6, the latest I believe). My question is have things have moved on beyond the discussion contained in the above thread? I am not focused, at this point, on upscaling/downscaling but rather simply on getting the best full pixel base image.
Is there anything in CS4 (ACR 5.x) which would improve capture sharpening?
(BTW I have previously used Photozoom to upscale. The thought of scaling in ACR seems incompatible with then image-editing independent of output size so that the final work can then be output to any desired size at any point in time.)
Finally, for output sharpening I used Photokit. I have not yet purchased Lightroom. I have yet to fully evaluate the benefits although these seem to be purely workflow oriented rather than 'functional'. One thing in the above thread piqued my interest though and since it's related I will ask: are there significant advantages to output sharpening in Lightroom versus Photokit?
Thanks in advance
Steve

Steve Kale wrote:
Only if one can get an image to final output satisfaction are they useful. I suspect that's a minority of cases but maybe ACR has developed way beyond my current impression.
Well, I guess you haven't downloaded the demo and actually used ACR 5 yet huh? Many, many photographers find with the addition of local tone/color control the numbers of images that MUST go through Photoshop has been drastically cut. So, for those people who can do most everything in ACR, there's the useful ability to do output sharpening. Very handy when you are doing a batch save of a bunch f images intended for a web page or prints at a lab. The only caveat is that for the output sharpening to be effective, you must be able to spec the final size in ACR. That's a bit crude at the moment but should improve in the future...
As for Photoshop having output sharpening as well...I don't disagree...but that's a separate business issue that I can't really get into. Hopefully we will be able to work something out down the road.
The issue with Advanced B&W printing is an Epson issue to fix...it can't be fixed by Adobe (or at least shouldn't be). However, it works just fine if you use intentional double color management and set the CS4 to handle color management and send the driver Adobe RGB (as the output profile) and then also set the driver to Advanced B&W. This works for CS4 and Lightroom 2.x.

Output sharpening in InDesign

I don't find any image output sharpening options in InDesign CS5. Don't they exists or is there another workflow? In the past I was told to resize and sharpen images in Photoshop before I place them in InDesign. Unfortunatley this is a very cumbersome process, especially when the image size is not fixed in the design, but will depend on the amount of content. If you resize and crop the image in InDesign (where I also have the context around the picture) it is almost impossible to recreate the exact image in Photoshop. I would have expected that InDesign has an option to output sharpen the images, but I can't find any. I checked the help, the forum and googled. I might use the wrong keywords, but I didn't find any usefull information. Especially after a lot of sharpening workflow made it in to other programms like Lightroom, I would have expected to have such a basic funtion where it is especially needed. By coincident I found link optimizer (http://www.zevrix.com/linkoptimizer.php), which is just the perfect solution, but it seems to be available only for the MAC and not for Windows.
Does anybody has any proper and sufficient workflows?
Marcus

A few observations from an Adobe perspective ...
Sharpening is a technique applied to raster images to boost apparent sharpness. The fact is that the best way to “sharpen” a photographic image is to properly focus the camera's lens prior to shooting! The sharpening available in Photoshop and other raster image processing programs simply stated tries to boost apparent sharpness by artifically enhancing what looks like object “edges” in the image files.
Sharpening is image specific. Some images require no sharpening, many benefit from minor sharpening. And of the images that require any significant sharpening, that sharpening is often best applied selectively within the image such as to accentuate a person's face and/or fuzz out an overly busy and sharp background (effectively reducing depth of field). As you may know, Photoshop provides a number of methods of and options within such methods for image sharpening.
The actual sharpening process is in fact dependent on the resolution of the original raster image as well as the apparent resolution of the image when rendered either on screen or to plate or paper. That apparent resolution is the resolution after any image resampling (either downsampling or upsampling also known as image interpolation) performed by the on-screen renderer or the RIP (for printing). Such image resampling can either effectively erase or exaggerate the results of sharpening done earlier in the workflow. In the latter case, those exaggerated results appear as unexpected ridges and/or light lines in the output.
InDesign is primarily a layout program with significant support for entry and editing of text and vector objects. Support for raster images is primarily for placement within the document, sizing (including magnification and cropping), rotation, and participation in some special effects available also to text and vector object, in other words operations on raster images associated with the use of such raster images in the context of the publication being produced in InDesign.
We get enough complaints about the complexity of InDesign as is. Trying to integrate a full Phoshop-like image editor into InDesign would be way over the edge. Furthermore, in most publication workflows, raster images and similar artwork are typically not embedded in any publication file itself, but referenced by links by all publications that use such raster images and artwork.
Ideally, Photoshop would be used for specifying qualitatively what within an image is to be sharpened, to what degree, and possibly with what method and allow some preview of what the results of that specified sharpening would look like when rendered at a particular magnification. Such sharpening parameters would accompany the image as metadata through InDesign to the exported PDF file and would only be acted upon (i.e., the actual sharpening of the raster bitmap based upon the sharpening parameters) by the renderer or RIP when either the PDF file is viewed at a particular magnification or printed at a particular resolution.
The problem is that the ideal sharpening workflow is not currently implemented by anyone. It makes little sense to try to hack something onto PDF export capability of InDesign to do sharpening when in fact the target display magnifications and/or printing resolution is not yet definitively known. Furthermore, since such sharpening parameters would likely differ from image to image per (2) above, doing a global sharpening of all images with a single set of parameters makes no sense at all.
This subject is very interesting and complex. The OP, FastFeet, does bring up some important points. Unfortunately, a reasonable solution requires “fixes” and new features in the image editing and the rendering aspects of the workflow, not in InDesign, the layout vehicle.
- Dov

Output sharpening on export

I wonder if there is a way to specify an amount of sharpening that shall be applied to an exported image that is going to be scaled down e.g. for web presentation. My preferred solution would be to include this into an export preset.
I have used this "output sharpening" feature (also known as "web sharpening") within the export preset e.g. in Bibble Pro 5 (yes, another RAW converting software) and it really helps avoiding loss of sharpness as a result of scaling down images. I agree that this is not necessarily needed for each and every image but there are quiet some cases when output sharpening gives them some punch.
As a newbie to Aperture this is what I have learned so far:
Aperture provides various tools to adjust sharpening of images, starting with the sharpening adjustment applied to RAW files (RAW fine tuning) continued by "Sharpen", "Edge Sharpen" up to the possibility to "brush in" sharpening to certain parts of an image.
Apple was so kind as to provide a nice introductory movie clip to illustrate the basic usage of edge sharpening
All these adjustments are applied to the image in its original size of course. As soon as I export images and downsize them (using an appropriate preset) I do not seem to have any influence on how post-processing continues (re: sharpening). I have to rely on how Aperture handles this internally (right?). Surprisingly, this is different when it comes to printing. If the output is print the user may adjust the amount of "output sharpening".
As far as I have seen I am not the first and only one who faces this issue. A more elaborate article on output sharpening with sample images in context with Aperture is given e.g. here.
Another interesting review on "Sharpening with Aperture 3" can be found here.
Of course I have also searched the forums for a suitable solution. As far as I can see a satisfactory solution has not been outlined so far:
Sharpening upon jpeg export
Sharpening export workflow question
Output sharpening
Sharpening during exporting process
Maybe there are some news or workarounds in the meantime. I'd appreciate your proposals and look forward sharing your experience on this issue.

Kirby, I thank you for your kind answer. It is very much appreciated!
After reading one of the articles quoted in my original post I thought that the "BorderFX solution" for output sharpening on export would no longer work. But it obviously does as you report.
In the meantime I have had a look at the BorderFX website. Many features for a plugin - more than I usually need - but an interesting project anyway!
As you supposed I am not that keen on using a plugin for just the sharpening of images going to the web. But it's at least a workaround which I think is worth while a try.
So let's have a try!
For anyone having a similar problem I attach two sample images which I exported
a) with the built-in export feature of Aperture (3.2)
b) with BorderFX (1.5.3) and the settings you recommended
Please be sure to click on the respective images as the previews look horrible to me at first sight!
a) Aperture Export (resize to 600 px height)
b) BorderFX export (resize to 600 px height, Edge Sharpen: Intensity: 0.5, Radius 1.00)
The image size allowed to upload here is quit limited, but I think the difference can be noticed. Maybe the sharpening in b) is already overdone but the comparison shall only serve as a first shot.
If somebody from the Apple Aperture team comes across this thread:
Maybe we can have a "sharpen on export setting" right within Aperture one day?
This is what e.g. Bibble offers in this respect:
In this case post processing is similar to an unsharpen mask filter setting.
I edited my message after I have seen the artifacts appearing in the preview images.

Iphoto book sharpening for print

Hello everyone:
I am planning on sending an iPhoto album to print to Apple. I have one doubt regarding my final workflow step, which is the output sharpening: using either Aperture3 or Capture NX2 what are the most appropriate output sharpening values ana metods (for printing of course) to get a properly sharpened output and not a flat result or one that is oversharpened and may contain halos and other artefacts? Are techs from Apple applying any sharpening algorithms to the albums before printing?
If any of you have experince with this, I wait for your feedback.
Cheers!

Do you plan to sharpen each photo in the book with Aperture or Capture NX2? Unless you see photos which have obvious reasons for sharpening there's really nothing you need to do. Just make sure none of the pictures have the Adobe RGB color profile.
iPhoto creates a PDF file of the book for uploading and printing. You can preview that PDF file by Control-clicking on the background of the All Pages window and selecting Preview Book from the contextual menu.
You can save the preview to compare to the book when you receive it.
Happy New Year

Web Module Output Sharpening question

Is the web gallery output sharpening in LR2 only available when a web gallery template makes it available? I can't seem to find it under Output Settings for most of my installed gallery templates? I'm guessing that the developer has to make this available and/or the template has to be LR2 aware. Not sure though. Of course, it would be very convenient to make web gallery output sharpening available for any template installed.

I have to follow a somewhat convoluted workflow when doing my photobooks. But in a nutshell.
Import Raw Image from EOS 30D
Apply color correction and capture sharpening (I sharpen until it looks good onscreen)
Export images at their largest size to my Links folder for InDesign. (I design all of the photo book in InDesign.)
Once I know all the sizes for sure in InDesign, I run a script that takes each image into photoshop and sizes the images to 100% and imports them back into InDesign.
I take the sized down images back into LR2 and output sharpen them and update them in InDesign.
I know it's not the greatest workflow, but it seems the the easiest and quickest. I wish there was some way for InDesign and LR to communicate the correct image sizes. But I haven't discovered anything like that yet.

Specify output sharpening

Hi everyone,
i have a litte big-problem,
when i export my Photos to 800x800 *.JPG, then they will nerver get really sharp.
What can i do to get sharper ones?
Have anybody else these Problems?
I don't want to export them in Photoshop, sharpen there and then Import them back into LR, this schould be not the way it works!?
greetings Annika
P.S. the help woun't help..
[quote: Help-Site]
*You can choose to apply an adaptive output sharpening algorithm to your photos when you export them. The amount of sharpening that Lightroom applies is based on the output media and output resolution you specify. Output sharpening is performed in addition to any sharpening you apply in the Develop module.
If you choose JPEG, PSD, or TIFF as your file format, select the Sharpen For box in the Output Sharpening area of the Export dialog box.
Specify whether you are exporting for Screen, Matte Paper, or Glossy Paper output.
(Optional) Change the Amount pop-up menu to Low or High to decrease or increase the amount of sharpening applied. In most cases, you can leave the Amount set to the default option, Standard. *[/quote: Help-Site]

In case you've not already done so, you'll need to make sure your image is first properly capture-sharpened. In particular,
make sure you've applied a sufficient amount of sharpening in Develop's Detail panel. You'll need to be viewing the image at 1:1 (i.e., 100%) or higher to preview the capture sharpening. Once images look crisp (but not oversharpened) in that view, then they should also look crisp when exported and downsampled using the Standard/Screen output sharpening.

Sharpening for web against sharpening for print

I am new to lightroom and I am trying to establish a workflow for processing my raw images.
I want to accomplish 2 things in regards to sharpening.
After doing all color corections I want to sharpen the image for:
1. web view
2. print through for example mpix service
If i sharpen something for the web view to my liking , how should i export the image for printing?
Where should i add any extra sharpening if any?
What is the best way to accomplish the sharpest image? (assuming it was done in camera correclty in the first place)
thx

Output sharpening for web or print is done in the export dialog. Just choose the particular use. The output sharpening in LR is an excellent tool as it takes into account the size of the file and gives various choices based on particular paper types. You would use sharpen for screen for the web image and sharpening for print for the print...two separate exports as you would also be changing the export sizing smaller for web, obviously. You can also use the print module and print to jpg appling the required sharpening in that module.
If the image requires any creative sharpening over and above what is applied by default then this is done using the sharpening tools in the develop mode and entirely separate process than the export sharpening. Use with caution as over sharpening is an easy mistake to make, ensure you view the results in LR at 1:1 and if applying a lot of creative sharpening do not over compress when exporting the file.

No difference between High and Normal output sharpening

I was going to post a topic about how small is difference between screen output sharpening settings, when some tests revealed that in fact the difference is nil.
b Can anyone see any difference between Normal and High screen sharpening in applied at export?
I even stacked the two versions in Photoshop with the Difference blending mode on and a Levels adjustment layer amplifying the difference, and even the histogram was showing that I'be got big plain black rectangle.
Sharpening for paper seems to work fine.
Lightroom 2.3 Windows.

Just took the time to test this on my 'calibration' image and there is indeed no difference in Standard and High sharpening for screen.
Same result with and without resizing image; with and without jpeg compression; with both tif and jpeg files.
Lr 2.3 on XP.

Output Sharpening for Blurb?

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