Is there any difference in how in-camera sharpening and PS works? Would the camera firmware be more attuned to correcting the IR filter for instance whereas PS needs to correct for various sources of blur? To what extent does it limit further adjustments in PS?

Justin.

If you are shooting raw the in-camera sharpening settings don't affect the raw data (generally speaking, except for a few older camera models).

Classic case of opening mouth before thinking on my part!

What about jpegs? Just as a matter of interest.

Justin.

I have yet to see decent incamera sharpening at least from the samples I've seen in camera reviews and from my Pentax K100D's jpegs.

The Pentax's sharpening resembles PS's USM's radius set to 2-3 with an amount of 100 which produces thick halos. So I set the incamera sharpening in the middle in Natural mode which gives just the right amount of sharpening where all I need to apply is PS's canned Sharpen filter and no USM and sometimes a fade to 50-75% on even that.

Your lens AF metering, focal length combined with aperture will have far more impact on perceived sharpness of both jpegs and RAW. You'll have to experiment with your own camera's settings to arrive at the sweet spot in PP.

Here's an example of mine from my Pentax

Click to view attachment

Consider the processor and memory in your camera, and now consider the processor and memory in your computer. Take as clean an image (RAW) as you can from your camera and use your computer for post-processing. Simple as that.

Mike.

Justin,

if you will shoot JPEGs the best thing is to set the camera to a lowest contrast setting, no sharpening and Adobe RGB as the color space. This will get you the best JPEG for postprocessing. Then you will be able to add better sharpening and the low contrast will give you more dynamic range to work with. It's very easy to add contrast, but very hard to remove it.

Regards,
Luis

The jpeg/RAW debate has probably been rehearsed many times here as well as other places. I use both, if I'm confident of the light and there will be little requirement for post capture processing then jpegs can have their uses.

As I understand things camera manufacturers have developed in-camera sharpening to compensate for the IR filter placed over the sensor. Idle curiosity makes me wonder as to whether the characteristics of the IR filter have a predictable effect on sharpness and so therefore may be more easily corrected as opposed to the PS sharpening which has to deal with all sources of blur?

I totally agree that a blurred or out of focus shot is just that and can only rarely be rescued by PS.

Sharpening does often add that little bit of impact to a shot though, whether it needs it or not, and I have often applied it rather than contrast.

Justin.

I agree :-) Even if I'm shooting RAW I leave the in-camera sharpening setting to a maximum. It makes it easier to check for good focus on the LCD.

Regards,
Luis

I've just started using Blend If on a layer set to Luminosity when sharpening to control halos. It's a lot faster, easier to control and less complicated than High Pass and Edge Mask sharpening which are excellent techniques on their own.

Blend If works great on high contrast images shot with high ISO settings where chroma noise can pepper the entire shadow range. To eliminate this noise I apply a Gaussian Blur to a layer set to Color mode, go to Blend If and isolate only the shadow areas and leave the sharp highlite detail alone to prevent color bleeding along hard edges which this bluring technique kicks up. I can then blend sharpening away from highlite areas on another layer so I don't blowout highlites much like using a mask that's adjustable.

Using Blend If and Luminosity blend does not have to be exclusive of using High Pass or USM with Edge Masks for sharpening. Luminosity Blend with USM is highly recommended to avoid color shifts. High Pass depends on an Overlay, Soft Light, or Hard Light Blend -- (although you can use an Overlay blend if you use Smart Filters for the sharpening and set the blend for the layer itself to Luminosity).

I use Blend If sliders religiously with High Pass, Smart Sharpen, and USM sharpening with edge masks.

Cheers,

Mitch

I use PK Sharpener and never need to worry about any of that. It's still the best thing since sliced bread for sharpening photographs easily and intelligently.