by Zack Schnepf
The number one question I got after I produced my tonality control video is this. How do you sharpen, and when? The simple answer is, I don’t sharpen until I’m going to present the image in one medium or another. That means I don’t sharpen at all when I export from Lightroom either; this is my own preference. I find that the more times you sharpen an image the more image degradation you get. If I’m presenting on the web, or on screen, I use the techniques detailed in an older video log. This explains why our images look so sharp online. You can view it here:
If I’m presenting the image in print, I use a separate workflow. I’ve tried several advanced sharpening techniques, plugins, and programs specifically designed for sharpening, but I still prefer to keep it simple and use the tools built in Photoshop. In this video tutorial I walk you through my simple workflow for sharpening for print.
The image I used for this video is 4 exposures blended together using my advanced Photoshop tonality control and multiple exposure blending techniques. I produced a video detailing these techniques, it’s available here: www.zschnepf.com
I will be releasing a new video detailing many more advanced techniques later this year.