PK Somehow Not ?Strong? Enough?

[danrichman]

I used PKSharpener to good effect for several months in Photoshop CS2 on the ~1.25MB JPEGs turned out by my Canon point-and-shoot. Now I?ve bought a 20D and have been trying to choose between the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 and the Canon 17-40 f/4L.

I?ve been shooting RAW, then using Adobe Camera Raw, where I use the sliders and apply Curves. Then I save the images as .PSD files and import them into Photoshop, where I apply sharpening.

But I?ve noticed that PKSharpener now seems to be much less effective than it was with the point-and-shoot's JPEGs. In fact, its effects are often barely noticeable, even at 100 percent opacity.

I?ve been forced to use USM, which, when ramped up toward 250 percent, does produce sharpening.

I realize that the point-and-shoot?s JPEGs probably had some in-camera sharpening applied, whereas the 20D?s RAW images do not. Beyond that, I?m confused.

I?ve read that some lenses are ?resistant? to sharpening. That seems unlikely, but could it be true? If so, could it possibly be true of *both* those lenses?

If not, I?d appreciate any thoughts as to how I can improve my results with this excellent piece of software, which I have come to value highly.

Dan Richman
Seattle

[thompsonkirk]

It's a bit hard to tell what you're doing, because you don't say whether you're doing Capture Sharpening, Output, or both - nor what the other settings are, besides Amt, for USM.

Suggestion for 20D files:

1. Capture sharapening: High Res; Narrow in most instances; fade Opacity of sharpening layer set to 66%.

2. Output sharpening: Varies with resolution, type of paper, & print size. For 20D files on matte papers res-ed up to 360 ppi for printing, I use the Matte 360 setting (of course) & fade the opacity usually as follows, for full-frame/uncropped prints: 50% for 8.5x11; 65% A3; 85% 13x19; 100% 17x22. If you use other image resolutions, glossy papers, or print sizes/croppings, then experiment from this baseline.

Settings in these ranges should give you sharpening that looks 'photographic,' if you'll pardon the term - that is, like a gelatin-silver print that's been through an enlarging lens, rather than a file with sharpening artifacts that went through a computer.

If this doesn't look OK, my guess would be that you're comparing your ressults to point-&-shoot files that had been subjected to moderate-to-serious over-sharpening. The in-camera sharpening of your JPEGs would depend, of course, on how you'd set the camera.

The amount of Capture sharpening you need depends mostly on the anti-aliasing filter in the camera, & less on what lens you use. I don't use Tamron lenses, but I've used a Canon 17-40. Sometimes they're not very sharp at the 40mm end (see review on Luminous-Landscape website). But you can have Canon recalibrate them by re-setting the Best Focus Point, & their sharpness should then be first-rate - particularly because your 20D is using only the center of the circle that the lens can cover.