Lightroom Tutorial Series, Sharpening Is An Illusion

Hello, welcome to my blog.  Today I am doing another Lightroom tutorial, covering sharpening.  Sharpening is an illusion, as it does not create detail.  If there is no detail when you capture an image there is no amount of sharpening that will add, repair or fix that missing detail.  Sharpening is an optical illusion, this illusion is created by controlling “edge contrast”.  Contrast, in imaging, is the difference between the lights and the darks…that is it.  In the case of photography, the lights and darks that are controlled are mainly edge detail.  There are some adjustments being made to the fine details, patterns as well as fine edges, but most of the control is directly at the “Main Edge Details”.

Sharpening can be applied to any image, but it is a must when working with a Raw file. The reason, sharpening has not been applied to a Raw file and if it has, only in small amounts.  Every image is different, when it comes to the amount of sharpening that can be applied, so there are no magic numbers or settings that can be applied to all images.  Sharpening is no different than any other adjustments in a post work flow, if you dont like processing files, shoot JPEG’s, for the image has already been processed in the camera, much like we do in Lightroom. This means sharpening has already been applied, but if you go this route, you better nail exposure, and have color on lock as there is little room for error, but this is a topic I will cover in a later post.

There are two specific controls that affect sharpening in Lightroom and Camera Raw.  First is the “Amount” slider, in Lightroom 4 the default is 25, so there is always a small amount applied to every image. However you need to find exactly what setting is best for each image.  I don’t think I have ever applied an “Amount” slider adjustment over 60-65 (as my rule of thumb).  The second control is the “Radius” slider, which controls the edge transfer of dark or light information.  The higher the radius number the wider the edge detail is.  Remember sharpening does not affect color, it only effects control in luminosity, “Darks and Lights” or contrast.  The slider number doesn’t really matter, as you must judge each image individually. With that said, I set the Radius slider from .6 to 1.2-1.3 max. In the video I show you a trick to know exactly how much of each slider you are applying to an image without any guesswork.  A hint, use the “Alt Key” (option key on Mac).

There are some other controls in the Sharpening panel of Lightroom, they are “Detail” and “Masking”.  Detail, is a very important slider, it uses a very complex algorithm to select and enhance texture, fine detail and fine edge detail by increasing micro contrast.  The most important thing to remember is, do not over do it with detail slider or you can ruin the image.  Finally, Masking, one of my favorite sliders in Lightroom, it is a very powerful slider. As I said earlier, sharpening does not affect color, it gets it’s control using luminosity (darks and lights). From past tutorials, you know that I love luminosity, and in particular luminosity masks. This is exactly what is happening with the Masking slider. You get to control what is sharpened and what is not. Like all masks in Adobe, white reveals and black conceals. This slider makes sure you don’t sharpen the sky or better yet, noise. If you sharpen noise, you get all sorts of nasty artifacts. The Masking Slider is only available in Lightroom and Camera Raw, so enjoy it.

Please bear with me during the video, it takes a few extra mins to explain what exactly is going on, I hope you fully understand sharpening when you are done viewing.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below. I will answer them as soon as I can. I want to thank you for taking time to visit my blog, and I hope you have a great day, Thomas Shue

The Video

A Follow Up, “Before and After” (per reader request)