Do you have to sharpen every picture when taken in RAW??

dickelfan

Senior Member
Just purchased new 85mm 1.8 and thought it might help with sharpness for photos. I took a couple of shots of friend's dog yesterday and when processing them I find that every shot I have to sharpen for it to look good. Is this just case of me taking bad shot, camera (I'm about ready to get rid of d7000) or something else??? Using Photoshop to sharpen. LR for edits.

Before

DSC_6505.jpg

After

DSC_6505-Edit.jpg

Before

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After

DSC_6491-Edit.jpg
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Generally RAW shots have to be sharpened and processed. This is the whole idea behind shooting RAW. You make the decisions on how you want to process and sharpen a photograph instead if the camera's software.

If you don't like or don't have time for processing shots, you need to be shooting in Jpeg because you will never be happy with your RAW files.
I have never met a RAW file I didn't have to sharpen.:)
.
 

Blacktop

Senior Member
Thanks blacktop....that is what I figured, just wanted to make sure.

LR by default will apply some sharpening to RAW files at import, but usually just a little. I do my sharpenings in different programs depending on what I need.
I use PS smart sharpen when the shot does not need much or the shot is not really that important to me. For fine detailed sharpening I use Dfine-2 from Nik Tools, and now I have been playing with Topaz Detail as well.
 

dickelfan

Senior Member
I have been using PS smart sharpen for just about everything. I've got the Nik Tools but still need to use them more to get some practice.
 
I use a preset that a friend of mine shared with me. It worked great on my D7000 and it works great on my D7100 and D750 now. It has actually cut down on the time I spend doing post processing and I think makes my photos look better.

You can look up how to apply a preset on import as a default. Here are the settings

Clarity +15
Vibrarance +15

Under Detail set the following:
Sharpening:
Amount 75
Radius .9
Detail 40
Masking 40


Make sure that Apply Profile Corrections is checked in the lens correction section

This is a great starting point and many times that is all you need for sharpening.


If there is anything else that you find you are ALWAYS doing in your processing then you can add it in your import. One thing to look at is your noise reduction. If your camera tends to be a little noisy then add a little noise reduction here.
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Using Photoshop to sharpen. LR for edits.


All digital images need a little sharpening, but it's normally pretty automatic. However, realistically, sharpening of course should be done after resample.

When using Photoshop to resample smaller for viewing or printing purposes, the Resample default choice of Bicubic Sharper makes it be automatic. This is normally all I ever do, just resample it. This default is in menu Edit - Preferences - General. I don't have Lightroom, but would guess it probably has something similar. And Adobe Camera Raw has an adjustable default sharpening it will do. But sharpening ought to be done after any resampling (because the original pixels get destroyed).
 

Rick M

Senior Member
The only time I might not sharpen is with portrait shots, depends on the lens, otherwise most of my shots are sharpened. I wouldn't automatically do anything, sometimes I'll back off LR's presets depending on the lens.
 

Woodyg3

Senior Member
Contributor
Sharpening needs to be applied to RAW files, for sure. I like to do it as my last step in processing, or at least AFTER any noise reduction, since sharpening makes noise worse. I also use Light Room's masking feature to avoid sharpening large open areas like the sky where noise is most obvious.
 

singlerosa_RIP

Senior Member
On DX, your shutter speed should be > 1/150 (1.5X focal length). And you have a narrow DOF at 1.8 and 2, which isn't helping. I shoot RAW and usually sharpen a little or a lot, depending on how I want the shot to look.
 
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