BackdoorArts
Senior Member
No.
When shooting RAW no sharpening is applied outside of what you apply within your processing. With JPEG there are sharpening settings within each of the camera profiles you can choose from. So, if you're shooting RAW and not consciously sharpening your photos, and then wondering why yours may not be as crisp as other folks', there's your answer.
There are many ways to sharpen a photo, and good and bad times to apply sharpening. I've been through too many tutorials and tried many methods and have been fans of one method only to abandon it when I find something better. Some methods work better than others for particular types of photography. No easy answers - some things you need to figure out yourself.
Me? I sharpen 3 times.
First, I "pre-sharpen". The purpose of this step is only to make sure that the image I start with looks in focus and the lines are well defined. I've abandoned using the ACR Sharpening box and now have that set to 0 on all my import presets. What method I use to get it there depends on the starting point and the ISO. I always apply noise reduction with Nik Dfine 2.0 first before anything else. The lower the ISO, the more I can usually work the pre-sharpening, but you need to be careful not to amplify any noise (masking becomes very important) as it will be your enemy throughout the rest of post.
Second, I final sharpen the full size image. Once I've got all the light manipulation done and the image looks like I want, I will apply sharpening again to the full size image, not to enhance it, but to make sure it looks good at size. Here is where I will often use the Lightroom Sharpening section against the PSD file. I first slide the Masking slider to the right while holding down the Option/Alt button so I can see the mask. I bring it far enough to the right so that only those lines I want sharpened are showing. Then I'll bring up the sharpening slider until it is just sharp enough and no more. Why? Because...
Third, I sharpen the re-sized image. I use the Lightroom Export function to produce my resized images. Many folks do it in Photoshop and I understand why, but I like doing it this way. When I export, my preset has Output Sharpening turned off. Once the image is exported, I open the exported image and inspect it for sharpness. I will then use one of several methods to apply sharpening. Here' I like a method that produces a high pass-like mask in a separate layer that I can then use with various blend modes (Overlay, Soft Light or Vivid Light usually) and levels of opacity. Once I'm happy with it, I flatten the image and re-save the jpeg.
Voila!!
Alas, the devil is in the details. There are lots of sharpening tutorials out there, and many contradict a lot of what I do. Most people will tell you not to sharpen ever until the very last step. I get that, and when I was just starting I realized that this is because a beginner is going to try to get things razor sharp first and then move on to light adjustments. But sharpening essentially creates a barely perceptible luminance boundary against your lines, and when you start playing with light those things become halos VERY quickly. The key is to never overdo it ("Guilty!!", countless times), and learn from the times you do.
