Output Sharpening For Clients Without PK?

[rhkdiver]

I have a number of images published each year in magazines. I have recently started using PKS and I have to send a number of files to one of the mags that publishes my work. My delimma is that when I apply Output Sharpening for the type of presses they use ( halftone 300dpi coated stock) many of my files look over sharpened.

I am concerend that the magazine art director will reject the images. I also do not know what size they resize the images to ( if at all ). My original files are 16 bit 3008x2000 pixels processed in ProPhoto Color space.

The files I will submit are 8bit, Adobe RGB, 3008x2000 Tif files. Should I Output Sharpen if I have no control over the final file processing, and use the default Output Sharpening even if some of the images look too sharp OR should I not use Output Sharpen at all under these circumstances.

Please advise.

[Jeff Schewe]

The PK Sharpener manual addresses this. . .by "looking over sharpened" are you referring to actual printed output or are you reerring to what they look like on screen? Simply put, you really can't accurately judge output sharpening on screen. At best you can set your monitor zoom ratio to 50% to have a rough guide to sharpening amount, but it's only a rough guide.

Point of fact though, you simply can not do final output sharpening unless the image is at the final reproduction size and resolution. There is no such thing as a "general default", sorry, wish there was. Any resampling done to the image after final output sharpening will invalidate the previous sharpening.

Your best bet is to either do no output sharpening (and suggest to your clients they use PhotoKit Sharpener after they determine the final layout size) or give them specific sizes.

[rhkdiver]

Jeff, thanks for the quick response. I am referring to the output as I see on my screen, sorry for the confusion. I have read the online manual thoroughly and did see that we should not judge the image output after Output Sharpening by what we see on the screen.

But after using Output Sharpening on some images my fear was that the client just wouldn't understand what was going on.

What I meant by "general default" was the amount of sharpening that PKS applies during output sharpening without making any changes at all to the layer opacity or levels and just accepting what I would call the "default" sharpening that happens globally with no changes on my part.

Since the layout needs of the all of the magazines that use my pix vary from image to image ( and issue to issue ), my thought at this time is to omit Output Sharpening so as to not confuse the art directors.

I would love to hear from any of you out there who have the same dilemma and what you do in this situation.

[Jeff Schewe]

Well, I would advise spending the time and energy teach your clients the importance of final image sharpening based upon the final image size. There really is no other option. I would suggest making this a value added proposition wherebye you could do your clients the service of doing final sizing and output processing based upon their final layout. Which is what I do.

Too many clients don't understand the final output process. They are having a hard enough time just understanding color management let alone trying to understand how to do final image prep for halftone. But a professional job really requires final output sharpening after all sizing and resolution has been set. Unfortunately, many designers and art directors don't even process the final image files to size and let the layout app, be it Quark or InDesign do the final sizing-which is even worse.

The bottom line is that for years, art directors and designers left both the color correction and final image prep to the pre press service. the scanner opperator handled the color and generally, sharpening was applid on the fly based on final size/resolutions. Now with digital photography, it seems nobody knows what to do. But I'll bet that who ever does the final RGB>CMYK conversion doesn't have a clue about final output sharpening. . .so you would be doing your clients a service to make them aware of the importance of this. And if you do it, charge them for it.

Go through almost any magazine these days and the odds are you'll see a lot of un-sharpened or incorrectly sharpened photos. . .odds are those were handled by somebody other than the actual photographer well downstream from submission.

It's the same problem facing art directors using stock. Same limitation-the stock agencies can't do final image sharpening simply because the delivered file will, in all likelyhood, be resized for repro.

PhotoKit Sharpener can really help out. . .you could deliver capture & creative sharpened images and have the AD do the final sizing and then run PK Output sharpening. . .