Capture sharpening?

Just curious as to how much every one here capture sharpens, particularly with adobe camera raw. I've got a bunch of files from a 40D that I need to process so I thought I'd see what amount you guys were sharpening initially.

Thanks for any info.

I usually sharpen pretty aggressively (at all stages)... settings in Lightroom are the same as ACR and typically I use something like Amount 60, Radius 1.2, Detail 50 and Masking 15. These are the starting settings in my Develop default; I usually tweak them at least a bit on most images. For example, if there's no sky I may drop the masking to 0. If there's lots of super fine detail I might increase Detail to 65 and lower the Radius to .9.

A mangonel is a type of catapult that is true to the real catapults they made in the Middle Ages and Medieval Times because they didn't have rubber bands -- they used twisted rope for power. It is also easy to build and pretty powerful for such a little catapult.

Todd, I'm a bit confused....

If you use Photoshop, I posted an entry on my web site describing my approach to sharpening with that tool. I have had little success with ACR sharpening.

I pretty much do exactly as Nat said.

I've been using Glenn Mitchell's free TLR Sharpening Toolkit actions for several years now with great success. For capture sharpening, I like the 'USM Enhanced Dual Contour Edge'. This kit was modeled after the successful (and expensive) PhotoKit Sharpener.
Having said that, I'm going to give Nat's method in ACR a whirl and see how that works.

Ditto Nat's LR approach for me ... I normally keep my radius between .6 to 1.0 ... Amount 40-60 ... masking 5 to 10 ... detail can vary wildly. I get more aggressive later with creative and print sharpening.

Ditto on Jesse's settings for high frequency content images, although my amount is usually around 70. Note, the strength of your sensor's anti-aliasing filter will influence the amount setting.

Jeff, regarding your lack of “success” with ACR sharpening and the workflow outlined in your blog, it appears that you are using a single pass sharpening approach, applied after all processing and resizing for final output. That is certainly the workflow that I was taught when starting with Photoshop.

Over the last few years, Adobe’s philosophy and software have changed to support a multipass approach of capture, creative, output sharpening. Now, the image sharpening tools in Camera Raw and Lightroom are designed for capture sharpening only . The objective for capture sharpening is to create a use-neutral master image that can easily be repurposed for different output processes, at different sizes and resolution.

Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe have a new book outlining their optimized sharpening workflow,
“Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom”, 2nd Edition, 2010.
I feel it’s a book that everyone should read and have as a reference if they are using any of the Adobe products.

The interaction of the capture sharpening sliders are MUCH more sophisticated than I had assumed. For instance, it was not at all intuitive that adjusting the Luminance noise-reduction slider has an impact on the strength of the detail slider’s impact !!!

I’m sure Nat could devote the entire upcoming Digital Workflow Seminar to just defining an optimized sharpening workflow.

Bill, thanks for taking the time to share your excellent feedback. I didn't pickup on "capture sharpening" as something different from what I've been doing but I see now that it is.

So much to learn...

One of the reasons that I'm interested in Nat's workflow seminar was to learn more about Lightroom (my sense is that it will be centered around that tool.) The number of photographers that use it has left me wondering "why?" when I still get what are to me acceptable results from Photoshop. It appears to me that Adobe has embodied a specific workflow in Lightroom which intrigues me. Particularly since workflow is becoming more of an issue the more images I produce and the more serious I become about producing good ones.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Jeff - to answer your question as to why. I am simply too unorganized not to use something like Lightroom as a DAM (Digital Asset Management) tool. I never really liked Adobe Bridge (although many others do).
Before Lightroom I used iView (and loved it). I really like the way Lightroom has grown, especially now that it has targeted adjustments and custom print packages (in version 3.0 - it lets it act much like a RIP program to fill those 17" x 25" sheets of paper I have). I still use PS for tone-curves a-la Tony K., but all the gross exposure tweaks are done in LR.

Thanks for all the replies, I'll have to try out the different methods mentioned this weekend.

The number of photographers that use it has left me wondering "why?" when I still get what are to me acceptable results from Photoshop.

You may want to check out the debate between the two apps in this thread.
I issued the the following challenge to Lightroom users there:
" What can you achieve in LR that I cannot achieve using PS/adj. layers, ACR & Bridge?"
Still no replies after two weeks.

I went back and took a closer look at ACR sharpening. There's a little message I didn't notice before that states that you need to view an image at 100% to see the effects of sharpening. And indeed there is sharpening which you don't see otherwise.