Sharpening full-size images for Smugmug

dhilberg

Until recently I have simply put web-sized images on my Smugmug, not full-size. I had no interest in selling or printing, but would like to now. I want the images to be sharp both on Smugmug and in print, but am not sure how much sharpening to apply without ordering test prints (which is what I'm trying to avoid if possible, although I may just do it out of curiosity). The full-sized images I've sharpened for Smugmug don't look nearly as sharp as the web-sized ones I have. I'm assuming I'll have to play around with Smugmug's sharpening too, which I now have access to since I recently upgraded to a Power user account.

For those of you that put your full-size images on Smugmug, how do you sharpen them? What is your technique? Do your prints look equally good? What sharpening values do you use in the gallery settings?

I've done a ton of Googling on the subject, and have found an equally large number of differing methods. I'm familiar with smart sharpen, which is what I used on my web-sized images, and am somewhat familiar with unsharp mask and the high-pass filter method. I preferred the results I got with smart sharpen.

Anyway, any insight you have on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.

lynnma

dhilberg wrote:

Until recently I have simply put web-sized images on my Smugmug, not full-size. I had no interest in selling or printing, but would like to now. I want the images to be sharp both on Smugmug and in print, but am not sure how much sharpening to apply without ordering test prints (which is what I'm trying to avoid if possible, although I may just do it out of curiosity). The full-sized images I've sharpened for Smugmug don't look nearly as sharp as the web-sized ones I have. I'm assuming I'll have to play around with Smugmug's sharpening too, which I now have access to since I recently upgraded to a Power user account.

For those of you that put your full-size images on Smugmug, how do you sharpen them? What is your technique? Do your prints look equally good? What sharpening values do you use in the gallery settings?

I've done a ton of Googling on the subject, and have found an equally large number of differing methods. I'm familiar with smart sharpen, which is what I used on my web-sized images, and am somewhat familiar with unsharp mask and the high-pass filter method. I preferred the results I got with smart sharpen.

Anyway, any insight you have on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Hmm... I'm no expert on this... been struggling with it myself a lot lately. The last best mode I've found (for now, it changes all the time:) is duplicate your layer, change mode from normal to luminosity, unsharp mask to taste... maybe 50 or so (or much more) with a radias of about 1.5 depends what the image is..lanscapes, streets etc. This way you are only sharpening the detail in the luminosity layer, not in the color channels.. seems to me this is the best way to avoid increasing noise in the sky where you don't want sharp.
I'm sure others will give better options but after searching every nook and cranny this is the best I can come up with so far. Do you have camera raw? That has a nice sharpening option as well.
Hope it helps.

arodney

I'd start here: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html

Art Scott

dhilberg wrote:

Until recently I have simply put web-sized images on my Smugmug, not full-size. I had no interest in selling or printing, but would like to now. I want the images to be sharp both on Smugmug and in print, but am not sure how much sharpening to apply without ordering test prints (which is what I'm trying to avoid if possible, although I may just do it out of curiosity). The full-sized images I've sharpened for Smugmug don't look nearly as sharp as the web-sized ones I have. I'm assuming I'll have to play around with Smugmug's sharpening too, which I now have access to since I recently upgraded to a Power user account.

The amount of sharpening is extremely subjective to each individual photog. It is a trial and error thing to decide how much each shot needs......



For those of you that put your full-size images on Smugmug, how do you sharpen them? What is your technique? Do your prints look equally good? What sharpening values do you use in the gallery settings?
I leave sharpening to the very last.......I do all my processing in LightRoom and then if I need anything done that LR can't do I go to PS and get it done...then I head off to Genuine Fractals and uprez to my file size limit for SM (~24 or 25 mp/file) then it is back to PS amd UNSHARP MASK and I sharpen until the file looks like I want it too.....then I "SAVE AS" and it heads off for archiving on SM.......

Each of my files are evaluated one at a time and I do not use the same setting for multiple photos.....basicly I do not subscribe to doing anything in the way of BATCH processing except for uploading to SM...................





I've done a ton of Googling on the subject, and have found an equally large number of differing methods. I'm familiar with smart sharpen, which is what I used on my web-sized images, and am somewhat familiar with unsharp mask and the high-pass filter method. I preferred the results I got with smart sharpen.

Anyway, any insight you have on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Sharpening and sharpening methods are very subjective and each photog has to decide which method(s) work best for him/her self.............

Answers above in large bold.................

kdog

First of all, welcome to Dgrin, dhilberg!!

Secondly, I'm sorry that nobody who's responded seemed to understand your question. Here's my answer based on what I think you're asking.

I read recently that the best way to sharpen for Smugmug was simply to first zoom out your photo to a 25% view, then adjust sharpening parameters to make the photo look good at that view size. I've tried this and it seems to work quite well. When you do this, the default Smugmug gallery sharpening settings also seem to work well. You can increase gallery sharpening if you like, but it's not really necessary from my experience. This amount of sharpening seems to work well for prints as well. When you view the image at 100% it looks way oversharpened, but that's typical of the amount of sharpening you want for crisp prints. One thing I've noticed is that you must use a much larger radius for full size images than you would for a web size image. For websize I typically used .3 radius. For full-size sharpening, I'm usually closer to 1.0.

So that's my unscientific stake in the ground. Somebody more knowledgeable about the actual topic of sharpening for full-size images in Smugmug galleries (not just generic sharpening tips, please) should chime in. Let me know if this helps.

Cheers,
-joel

dhilberg

Thanks for all the replies.

kdog wrote:

First of all, welcome to Dgrin, dhilberg!!

Secondly, I'm sorry that nobody who's responded seemed to understand your question. Here's my answer based on what I think you're asking.

I read recently that the best way to sharpen for Smugmug was simply to first zoom out your photo to a 25% view, then adjust sharpening parameters to make the photo look good at that view size. I've tried this and it seems to work quite well. When you do this, the default Smugmug gallery sharpening settings also seem to work well. You can increase gallery sharpening if you like, but it's not really necessary from my experience. This amount of sharpening seems to work well for prints as well. When you view the image at 100% it looks way oversharpened, but that's typical of the amount of sharpening you want for crisp prints. One thing I've noticed is that you must use a much larger radius for full size images than you would for a web size image. For websize I typically used .3 radius. For full-size sharpening, I'm usually closer to 1.0.

So that's my unscientific stake in the ground. Somebody more knowledgeable about the actual topic of sharpening for full-size images in Smugmug galleries (not just generic sharpening tips, please) should chime in. Let me know if this helps.

Cheers,
-joel

Yes, this is exactly the information I was looking for. I'll try applying the sharpening at the 25% view size like you suggest. Then I'll upload and see how they look.

Thanks Joel!

kdog

dhilberg wrote:

Thanks for all the replies.



Yes, this is exactly the information I was looking for. I'll try applying the sharpening at the 25% view size like you suggest. Then I'll upload and see how they look.

Thanks Joel!

redleash

I do pretty much what kdog says and it works well--for print and looks good on line. Good luck!

Lauren

thaKing

i have, and use, nik sharpener pro 2....i have not gotten any prints from smugmug but i use the "lab photograph" option...anyone with experience using this on smugmug and ordering prints? photos look fine online, but not sure about prints...

CynthiaM

dhilberg wrote:

Until recently I have simply put web-sized images on my Smugmug, not full-size. I had no interest in selling or printing, but would like to now. I want the images to be sharp both on Smugmug and in print, but am not sure how much sharpening to apply without ordering test prints (which is what I'm trying to avoid if possible, although I may just do it out of curiosity). The full-sized images I've sharpened for Smugmug don't look nearly as sharp as the web-sized ones I have. I'm assuming I'll have to play around with Smugmug's sharpening too, which I now have access to since I recently upgraded to a Power user account.

For those of you that put your full-size images on Smugmug, how do you sharpen them? What is your technique? Do your prints look equally good? What sharpening values do you use in the gallery settings?

I've done a ton of Googling on the subject, and have found an equally large number of differing methods. I'm familiar with smart sharpen, which is what I used on my web-sized images, and am somewhat familiar with unsharp mask and the high-pass filter method. I preferred the results I got with smart sharpen.

Anyway, any insight you have on this would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Good question!

I, too, have been faced with this dilemma in that the sharpening has to serve a dual purpose one so that the image looks good on the screen and the other so that it looks good in print. I used to reduce my images to 72ppi and sharpen for screen output before uploading until I realized that you could upload a full resolution image and tell smugmug to only display it in a much smaller size so that if someone could right click, they only download a low-res image. So now, what I have on smugmug is like another source of backup; I have full resolution rendered jpegs. But like you, I was not sure what to do about sharpening being that they are full resolution images being viewed on screen.

So what I have been doing is this. I shoot raw and do the capture sharpening in Lightroom (same thing is in camera raw). I then use Photokit Sharpener by Pixelgenius for any other sharpening; creative and output (for screen or print depending on the output). The program is terrific as it takes the guess work out of any of the sliders in smart sharpen or unsharp mask. Their sharpening algorithms are the ones incorporated in Lightroom develop module and Camera Raw for capture sharpening and also in Lightroom Print module for output sharpening. I figure if they are good enough for Adobe they are good enough for me. Through Lightroom, I batch convert the images to jpegs and use an export action to add sharpening. I then look at the rendered jpegs to make sure that I am pleased with the sharpening; there may be a few in each batch where I have to go in and re-do it manually because it needs some fine tuning. I then upload the full resolutions jpegs to smugmug without changing any of the defaults that smugmug uses. They look fine to me by the time they get on line.

Hope that helps.

thaKing

Cynthia, do these also look fine printed? my process is similar, except i use nik's sharpener pro...i haven't printed anything, but the option i use for their plugin is for lab printing...shots look good online, but i've yet to print anything...

curious if others use nik or not....

CynthiaM

thaKing wrote:

Cynthia, do these also look fine printed? my process is similar, except i use nik's sharpener pro...i haven't printed anything, but the option i use for their plugin is for lab printing...shots look good online, but i've yet to print anything...

curious if others use nik or not....

I can't say. I have my smugmug account set up with a print delay (you can do that with the professional level account) which would allow me to sharpen any purchased images to the output size if anyone were ever to order a print. (yeah, right!) Now that I think about it the problem with sharpening for upload is that a 4x6 print would require different sharpening than a 10x15. When I speak of dual purpose, I'm thinking more of sharpening for my own printing at home and using the same to upload.

It's a problem because we are uploading full resolution images for viewing and "screen" sharpening is typically for a reduced resolution. If you are going to be picky, then I see no way around using the print delay so you can re-upload the properly sharpened image for a print order so that it is relative to the size of the print.

thaKing

CynthiaM wrote:

I can't say. I have my smugmug account set up with a print delay (you can do that with the professional level account) which would allow me to sharpen any purchased images to the output size if anyone were ever to order a print. (yeah, right!) Now that I think about it the problem with sharpening for upload is that a 4x6 print would require different sharpening than a 10x15. When I speak of dual purpose, I'm thinking more of sharpening for my own printing at home and using the same to upload.

It's a problem because we are uploading full resolution images for viewing and "screen" sharpening is typically for a reduced resolution. If you are going to be picky, then I see no way around using the print delay so you can re-upload the properly sharpened image for a print order so that it is relative to the size of the print.

well, i too have mine set up for a delay, but i've never ordered a print myself to check out the settings...like you say, different sizes can use different sharpening...well, when running nik against the full size, i'm not sure how that looks for a smaller print...i think i'm going to just order a few to check...