2 Step Sharpening

ed turlington

• February 04, 2011 03:07

For ideal sharpening an image should receive capture sharpening (pre-sharpen) and output sharpening. That's fine if using Capture One to convert from RAW into a presharpened Tiff that will later get output sharpening--and I often do that on smaller jobs where the individual images demand the best.

But I routinely shoot sports events in RAW, making hundreds of images and going directly to high res jpegs for an online gallery. I routinely use Soft Image Sharpening 1 but modify the settings to suit the images. If going directly from RAW to the final jpeg in one step there is no way to do 2 step sharpening....as far as I'm aware. (?) If I'm missing something will someone please tell me......thx, Ed

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  deejjjaaaa

  • February 04, 2011 06:25

  very easy (windows) :
  
  1) download something like imagemagick ( http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php ) and learn it (RTFM).
  
  2) create a batch file (.bat) to do the necessary postprocessing using imagemagick tools (resizing, sharpening, whatever)...
  
  3) in C1 go to "Process Recipe" -> "Open With" and enter your batch file name (you gotta love 'em, P1 programmers - the "Open..." dialog box was set to allow only .exe files selection through the UI point and click operation, but you still can type the full name of the file that you are going to use, even it is not .exe, but .bat).
  
  4) you are done !
  
  PS: so actually you will output for example to 16 bit .tiff, which will be converted w/ necessary sharpening to 8 bit .jpg by imagemagick tools (and in the same command file you can also add removal of generated.tiff file)
  
  the point of using imagemagick is to do a purely command line output sharpening, w/o opening the files in any interactive applications like Photoshop... assumption is that you are not using different output sharpening parameters for each image... if you are you can either create several batch files and select them on as needed basis or create special recipes in C1 and program the processing selection logic in the same batch file based on for example on the names of the files that will be generated by selecting different recipes in C1, etc, etc...

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  ed turlington

  • February 05, 2011 17:47

  Now that CO has Layers (in Local Adjustments).........are we not VERY CLOSE to being able to use Layers like in photoshop, then I could simply do presharpeing on one layer and output sharpening on another layer? I guess I'm wondering why layers exist in one tool and not universally for all tools in CO? I'm guessing this has been asked and answered many times and I'm the last to become award of this need?

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  IrinaPhoto

  • February 21, 2011 04:10

  I am not sure why you assume it doesn't do output sharpening? Maybe I'm confused.
  Capture sharpening is from the camera, output is when you hit process and make your final file.
  All that is left is possible retouching in PS (if beyond what C One does for you).
  It works for us, that's all we need.
  Mihkel

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  ed turlington

  • February 21, 2011 14:13

  Mihkel,
  
  By "capture sharpening" I am referring to the slight amount of sharpening done to the image file on the computer--to correct for the loss of sharpness in the image due to digital capture...due to the nature of the sensor.
  
  "Output sharpening" is according to the use for the image, ie, different amount and type of sharpening is appropriate depending on whether the image is for web, print, etc
  
  both types are available in the Sharpening dropdown menu in Capture One 6.
  
  for me, I've decided that 2 step sharpening is critical for those images that must be the best possible--especially if the image is to be printed 16x20 or larger......but if I am batch processing 300 images from a candid event or ball game to upload as high res files for making prints then I will simply apply Output Sharpening 1 (with no capture sharpening) and it will make no noticeable difference.....
  
  best,
  Ed

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