Cropping photos/sharpening/printing?

pahl

Shooting RAW I convert to tiff. I then do any touch ups and crop to 5x7.
The last thing I do is sharpen.

Is that the correct order I should do things in?
Does it make any difference when I sharpen?

I crop for 5x7, but print most photos out in 4x6 first to see how they look as a print. If they look good I do a 5x7 print. I don't do my prints myself at home. I do them at a local print shop or wal-mart.

I veiw my photos on the screen at 100% when checking for sharpness. I can have a photo look really sharp on the screen, but once they are printed it's just not as good.

They are not bad, not out of focus looking or anything, but just not the same looking.

Do I need to crop for 4x6 and print 4x6 and then if I want to print a different size redo the crop?

I have not done that many 8x10, but the ones I have done I do crop for 8x10 first.

What steps should I take in what order to get good sharp prints?

Thanks,

pahl

Malte

If you're using Photoshop, there's really no reason to convert to tiff. Just open the raw file in Adobe Camera Raw, make raw-type adjustments, and save as psd. Sharpening last is a good idea since it's a filter that needs to be applied to pixels - not a layer, making it "irreversable".

If your prints look wonky in 4x6 when you cropped them for 5x7 that isn't strange, they are different aspect ratios, not different sizes of the same "shape".

Malte

pahl

I use RAWShooter essentials and paint shop pro XI.