July 3, 2007
Lightroom 1.1 update: Sharpening and noise reduction
The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book 1.1 update:
Sharpening and noise reduction
Capture sharpening for a sharp start
In this feature story I wanted to concentrate on the new sharpening and noise reduction controls in Lightroom 1.1. But before discussing the new sharpening controls, I should briefly explain the principle behind capture sharpening and the difference between this and output sharpening.
To access this and the other feature stories published in this series, click on the stories listed in the top left section under: Lightroom 1.1 update. Or click here to read the full story.
The Unsharp mask filter in Photoshop has been around since the very earliest days of the program and has not really changed much since then. As Photoshop has progressed our understanding of sharpening and how to best use the Unsharp mask filter controls has improved and various techniques have evolved that cleverly use the Unsharp mask filter to its best advantage. In his life time, author and Photoshop guru Bruce Fraser, did the industry a great service with his research into Photoshop sharpening. His recipes for optimum sharpening based on whether you were sharpening for input, i.e. ‘capture sharpening’, or sharpening for output, have done a lot to improve our understanding of how to apply the most appropriate level of sharpening at each step of the image editing and printing process. It is also fair to say that Bruce’s research and writing had an impact on the way some of the sharpening controls in Lightroom evolved. But more of this later.
Here is a full list of the topics covered in this article:
Sharpen preset settings
Evaluation at a 1:1 view
Luminance targeted sharpening
Sharpening effect sliders: Amount & Radius
Suppression sliders: Detail & Masking
Interpreting the grayscale previews
Noise Reduction compared with 1.0