DPP Part 5 - The Final Image - Exercise 1 - Sharpening for Print

This exercise requires home printing of images. Unfortunately my home printer is just about good enough for slow document prints and not at all suitable for photographic prints. I have seen and read about many people encountering printing issues and a large expense in trying to print.

At this particular point I am unable to pursue photographic printing since I feel unable cost wise or knowledge wise to reach the standard that I would be happy with. On this basis I will not unfortunately be printing as part of this exercise though I do feel there is plenty more to learn here within the exercise.

I've taken a portrait image with no sharpening and used 100% magnification

This is the starting position but the image has been reduced to a small file size. This is at 16.7% zoom crop with no sharpening

I've used the original PSD to perform the sharpening then reduced to small jpeg size and zoom cropped to 100%

When sharpening I use CS6 and unsharp mask and would generally use the following settings:

Amount: Between 100-200%

Radius: Around 1.5-1.6 pixels

Threshold: Between 8-12


Amount 100%
This image using the settings above and is zoom cropped to 100%:

I would be happy with this level of sharpening


Amount 200%
This next image is sharpened with an amount at 200% and viewed at zoom crop 100%

Again I would be happy with this and its within my normal sharpening range



Amount 300%
This next image is sharpened with an amount at 300% and viewed at zoom crop 100%

I would not sharpen at this amount, there is no form of light halos I can see which is a normal occurrence with over sharpening along strong edges



Amount 400%

Again I can see no sign of light halos but the fur around the eyes begins to look less real and overdone


Summary
I am unable to print but of course it will depend at what size print image you are printing and with what size file you are using to print from. These files for my blog are all reduced in pixels to a max of 1000 on longest side and saved at 116k

The art, and disappointment to many people is being able to print what is seen on the screen. When viewing images you should at least view them on screen at the size they would be printed at. In addition to screen colour and print colour ICC profiles should really be set for paper type.

Sharpening can no doubt improve images to a degree but it cannot fix a photograph that is blurred. As always get right in the camera and don't rely on post production.

In general for portraits I use a single focus point and always get focus locked onto the subjects eye. It is the subjects eye that in most portraits will create a connection between viewer and subject.

Sharpening is a key aspect to printing but initial focus captured in camera is key. File size is also another aspect to printing. I see and hear about many people capturing a great image on the phone which looks OK on social media websites. When printing these individuals are often disappointed for a number of reasons, in correct focus, incorrect sharpening and also attempts to print at print sizes using a small file size.

An image can fail for many reasons but focus will be the most obvious. Discrepancies will often show up in prints particularly where the print size is bigger than the image viewed size