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.

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sharpener Pro 3 has problems in Aperture as the Pre sharpener continually asks one to buy or activate and the Output Sharpener causes Aperture to hang. Have removed all duplicate fonts and tried using a new user account. Any ideas?

I am experiencing problems with Sharpener Pro 3 as an Aperture 3 plug-in. These are: the Pre sharpener continually asks one to buy or activate and the Output Sharpener causes Aperture to hang. Following discussions with Nik Software I have removed all duplicate fonts and tried using a new user account. Neither of the courses of action worked. Have other users experienced these difficulties? Can you suggest an alternative remedy?

I am experiencing problems with Sharpener Pro 3 as an Aperture 3 plug-in. These are: the Pre sharpener continually asks one to buy or activate and the Output Sharpener causes Aperture to hang. Following discussions with Nik Software I have removed all duplicate fonts and tried using a new user account. Neither of the courses of action worked. Have other users experienced these difficulties? Can you suggest an alternative remedy?

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.

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.

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

Sharpen after export?

Hello Experts!
I'm thinking about the optimal workflow when sharpen an image: the sharpen-step should be one of the last steps when developing/optimize an image (raw or jpg or ...). And - it should consider the size of an image (...size of pixels...) or in other words: the size (and paper...) of the image-print.
That's right - or?
Does this realy mean, that the sharpen-step should be done AFTER an export of an image? The target size of the image is (only?)defined in the export-dialog. Then it would be nescessary to import the "exported" first and than starting the sharpen-process.
Is there a better way?
Thx,
Rudi

well - but this "works" on the whole picture and it's a very "simple" way - "simple" means: ther're only 3 items to do the sharpen.
In most cases i use
a) first smooth sharpen of the whole image and than the
b) selectiv sharpen with the control-brush
And especially in the second step i would prefer considering the (output-)size of the image.
Any other ideas?

Reports output delayed when exported to Excel using OLE2

Hi All,
Platform - Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 10.1.2.3 on Windows 32 bit.
The report output is getting generated in a minute when exported to PDF i.e destype=cache & desformat=pdf. When we generate the output to excel is considerably delayed. It is taking time and internal server error is occuring.
1) Report developed with simple query
2) Used RPT2XLS procedure which uses OLE2 builtin to export report output into excel.
3) Called RPT2XLS.run procedure in After-Report trigger of the report.
4) We have relased all memory objects in the RPT2XLS package after exporting data and there is no EXCEL.exe running once the file is generated.
System parameters used in the URL.
. destype=file
desformat=pdf
CONTAINSOLE=yes (Required for exporting OLE2 objects into Excel in report)
desname=path & name of the file.
I have gone through the tuning documents for reports server and increased minengine, maxengine and initengine parameters of the reports engine and also changed maxconnect and IdleTimeout parameters in reports server configuration file.
What might be the reason for delaying in the output of the reports when exported to Excel. Can the guys with special knowledge on this area help us in getting out of this issue.
Thanks in advance.

hey all,
Thanks everyone for the reply.
I am using the foloowing field cat:
l_col_pos = l_col_pos + 1.
    wa_fieldcat-col_pos = l_col_pos.
    wa_fieldcat-outputlen = 32.
     wa_fieldcat-fieldname = 'SOLLWERT'.
     wa_fieldcat-inttype   = 'P'.
*    wa_fieldcat-tabname = 'i_final'.
    wa_fieldcat-seltext_l = text-t11.         "Target Value
    APPEND wa_fieldcat TO i_fieldcat.
    CLEAR wa_fieldcat.
I have use this also in the field cat but stil i get space in the excel header.
wa_fieldcat-REF_FIELDNAME = 'SOLLWERT'.
*    wa_fieldcat-REF_TABNAME = 'QAMV'.
Also the space comes with the descrip[tion in the cell of excel.
its like [space Target Value] and i dont need this Space.
I have also used wa_layout-colwidth_optimize = 'X'. but it doesnt wrk.
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Aperture seems to ignore edge sharpening on export

I like this edge sharpening tool in Aperture.
However when I export a picture the export process seems to simply ignore my edge sharpening I made. This is even true when I use the "edit with ..." menu.
Edge sharpening seems also be ignored while printing pictures.
I must say that edge sharpening is quit useless if I can't see the effect in exported or printed versions

jonesmc wrote:
When you're exporting, are you choosing to export "Version"? Otherwise, you're just exporting the original.
I export Versions of corse.
I also think that this is a bug - and a very important one.

How do I specify an output folder when exporting?

I am running Adobie Premiere Pro CS5.5.
I got to File -> Export -> Media. The "export settings" box appears.
I know how to set the settings for my desired export. The issue I'm having is under "summary" where the output is specified. Often, I find my video is being outputted to random and unwanted folders. My videos have ended up in folders buried deep in my hard drive where a few have been lost forever. How do I specify the output location so I can easily find my video in a place that I want and is convenient?
-- extremely frustrated.

Output sharpening on export

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