Sharpening and noise defaults in the Develop Module

Question

Capture Sharpness
I’m getting my head around sharpening and am of the understanding that there are three distinct phases: Capture Sharpening, Creative Sharpening and Output sharpening
With regards to Capture Sharpening I’ve noticed that when I import a CR2 file into Lightroom 3.6 there is an Adobe pre-set in the Develop Module. Is this a form of Capture Sharpening default?
Sharpening
Amount: 25
Radius: 1.0
Detail: 25
Noise Reduction
Luminance: 0
Colour: 25
Detail: 50

Answer 1

In Lr, "capture" sharpening is global sharpening, and "creative" sharpening is local sharpening (or sharpen masking on global basis but tailored to the image), or at least that's one way of looking at it.
in other words, if you're sharpening raw data non-destructively, such that first round of sharpening isn't being baked in, there is no need to separate capture sharpening from creative sharpening, in your mind, or in the software you use.
Put another way, the notion of capture sharpening comes from days when first round of sharpening was baked in, e.g. shooting jpegs, or in raw workflows where first pass yields a baseline tiff, and 2nd pass is artist's choice...
That said, what's needed for artistic sharpening (creative effects) can differ from what's need for baseline sharpening (initial "capture" sharpening, if you will).
Capture sharpening: just make stuff look reasonably sharp, since without it things don't.
Creative sharpening: sky's the limit... - some people consider Clarity to be a form of creative sharpening...
Note: since Lr's sharpening settings can't be varied (there is no way to apply high-radius sharpening in one region, and low-radius sharpening in another), and since its algorithm is aimed primarily at countering inherent and/or subtle/limited unsharpness, some people consider Lr's sharpening to be "capture-only". On the other hand, capture sharpening is, almost by definition, global, so since Lr supports local sharpening, and sharpen masking, those aspects can be considered "creative".
In my opinon, it's best not to get too hung up on semantics/terminology, but in a nutshell, conceptually:
* Capture sharpening needs to be done so stuff looks reasonably sharp, and is often done across the board, not dependent on image content (this is why most people apply a default amount of sharpening in Lightroom).
* Creative sharpening is going beyond initial/default sharpening, generally on an image-by-image basis, although not necessarily. Note: it may involve removing all global "capture" sharpening in favor of no sharpening, or local sharpening only (raw data required).
* Output sharpening depends on resolution and medium etc, and therefore needs to be done last - tailored to output device and such..
Sorry if this post had too high of an answer to question ratio .
Rob