I know that all images need to be sharpened somewhat straight out of the camera and that LR2 has default capture sharpening settings, but I am trying to understand why the default settings need to be adjusted and how capture sharpening fits into the workflow. I've read the Kelby and Evening chapters on sharpening in LR2, and have the MR/JS series on the Fine Print. What I think I understand is that the amount of sharpening is output dependent. So unless I am creating a slide show to be viewed on my computer screen, why would I be concerned with capture sharpening? Assuming for example that my only output is prints, why wouldn't I sharpen only once during the printing process?

Thanks for your help.

Totally and completely wrong...capture sharpening has absolutely NOTHING to do with ANY output considerations. Seriously, you simply do not understand the sharpening workflow concept.

Read this and get back to us...Out of Gamut: Thoughts on a Sharpening Workflow by Bruce Fraser.

Check out Jeff's just revised book on Sharpening Here: (I'll blow the trumpet for you on this Jeff ) Real World Image Sharpening
This is the sharpening bible.

Thanks for the shout-out Josh...hope you got something out of it!

:~)

The idea of capture sharpening is that any digital image will benefit from a modest amount of sharpening no matter what you end up doing with it. In theory, the image after capture sharpening is what a perfect (or at least better) camera sensor would produce. The later you will often apply additional sharpening depending on the use. Thus, a photo for the web would get 1 kind and amount of sharpening, for a 16x20 print another type of sharpening, and so on.

You say you do only prints so could sharpen only once, but ideal sharpening differs based on the size of the print and the type of printer. And, can you be sure you will never be doing something else with your photos?

The From Camera to Print tutorial explains all this very clearly.

Capture sharpening attempts to mitigate loss due to the act of the digital capture itself. Different cameras, and different types of sensors require different amounts of capture sharpening.

Gentlemen, based on your responses I guess that I did not express myself clearly. Or maybe I really just don't get it even though I've gone through the sharpening segment to Camera to Print more than once. So I'll do some further reading on this.