Sharpening Rules

For optimal results, when applying any form of sharpening to your digital images, follow these rules:

1. Make sharpening the LAST step in your editing. If you wish to apply brightness, contrast or colour corrections or correct distortion – or make any other changes, these should be done BEFORE you reach for the sharpening tools.

2. Save a copy of the adjusted image BEFORE applying any sharpening. Then if the image doesn’t print as you want it to after you’ve applied sharpening, you have a corrected image to return to.

3. If you’re printing the image with an inkjet printer, slight over-sharpening usually gives better results than under-sharpening – particularly with larger print sizes. For images that will be printed at A5 or A4 size, setting the Amount slider between 50 and 90 should produce good results. Higher settings (up to 120) can work well for A3 and larger prints.

4. It takes a little practice to know how much sharpening to apply to each image because there’s no universal ‘best’ level. In most cases, you should be guided by the image itself and by the printer you are using. Expect to use up several sheets of paper while you fine-tune sharpening settings to discover what looks best.

The illustrations below show examples of correct and excessive sharpening. Note how the smooth tones in the image have been fractured by over-sharpening.

Applying the appropriate amount of unsharp masking makes sharp areas in the image look sharper without affecting other tones.

Setting the sharpening Amount slider too high destroys tonal smoothness and introduces noise artefacts.

This is an excerpt from Post Capture Pocket Guide.
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