How Much is Too Much?

[BackdoorArts]

Cheers Jake, that shows how much I don't utilise when post processing! I'm going to have a go at using your workflow for a few photos and see how it goes and maybe adjust it a bit to suit me.
Is sharpening in PS significantly better than using the sharpness setting in LR? Of course, you get to control what gets sharpened how much but is the quality of the sharpening any better? Maybe less noise? I'm asking because I have no idea how to sharpen in PS but if it's worth it I'll definitely go and find some tutorials.

I tend to use Unsharp Mask in PS. In LR I make sure that I set the Mask using the alt/option key. Hold the button down and slide the Mask slider to the right. As you do the screen will change from all white and show you only the portions of the image to be sharpened. Depending on the image I usually stop at somewhere between 75 and 95. I set the radius at 1.3 for the D600 and anywhere from 1.3-1.5 on the D800 based on a couple recommendations I've heard from Photoshop people (essentially, for sensors of 20MP's and higher 1.3-1.5 provides a good, natural look to the sharpening). Sharpening settings will go anywhere from 60 to as high as 130+ depending on the subject. I start low and tick upwards, checking what would normally be problem spots. In PS, before I sharpen I hit ctrl-J to add a duplicate layer and sharpen there, this way I can delete it and redo it if I need to. In LR it's non-destructive.

Given the way I'm forced to start managing some of my images this year (1000px for here, 2800px for Flickr, custom sizes for other things), I may stray from PS and do all my sharpening in Lightroom on Virtual Copies of the image. This way I come out of Photoshop with the finished image, unsharpened. This will be the image I use for printing, opening it again in PS and sharpening for the specific print size. I'll then create a virtual copy for each of the output images, which does not create another file but only a parallel catalog entry, and sharpen for each image file.

 

[fotojack]

I was looking at that shot again, and it occurred to me....maybe a split ND filter would have given the sky/clouds more definition,while leaving the bottom half of the shot alone. Just a thought.