Excellent output sharpening options? I mean, they're very useful, but there aren't any provision for sharpening for prints (which require very different sharpening than web images, afaik). There's handy PS plugins like NIK Sharpen, but I suppose they are available for LR too now. NIK Sharpen allows you to specify print size, intended viewing distance and other key parameters like that and optimizes the sharpening accordingly.
AhamB wrote:
Excellent output sharpening options? I mean, they're very useful, but there aren't any provision for sharpening for prints (which require very different sharpening than web images, afaik). There's handy PS plugins like NIK Sharpen, but I suppose they are available for LR too now. NIK Sharpen allows you to specify print size, intended viewing distance and other key parameters like that and optimizes the sharpening accordingly.
There are rudimentary provisions for print sharpening in the LR print module, and I believe that they take print size into account, but they aren't as adjustable as something like NIK. That being said, I started printing straight out of LR3 a while back, and it works well for me. Not that I'm a huge Michael Reichmann fan or anything, but even he prints straight out of LR now, without using PS at all.
AhamB wrote:
Excellent output sharpening options? I mean, they're very useful, but there aren't any provision for sharpening for prints.
Actually, there is. The LR output sharpening for prints is directly from the PixelGenius PhotoKit Sharpener developed by Fraser, Schewe, et al. You can set the output media and it adjusts the sharpening to the print size for you using the PhotoKit algorithms. Adobe directly licensed the inkjet sharpening from PixelGenius for the LR print module.
Of course PS has a vast array of plug-ins for output sharpening with more flexibility than what LR does automatically in the print module. The only point was, the default included output sharpening methods in LR are actually better for printing than what is in PS. They are effective enough that a surprising number of people that print for a living are printing from LR instead of PS - which I found surprising, and worth mentioning.
I just made a tiny print with the new LR4, and I think soft proofing will be the final nail in the coffin for me staying out of PS altogether. I also like how LR4's new develop module sliders work. They're more targeted and make a lot of sense.
@Douglas, Ken: Thanks for the explanation -- shows how much I print.
I prefer to have more manual control over sharpening (layer masks, history brush etc.) so I wouldn't even consider printing from LR. I know you can sharpen selectively with the adjustment brush, but LR3 just has a "sharpness" slider for that (too limited). If I had a lot of files to print, perhaps I'd change my ways, but I simply like the absolute control I have in PS.
Does anyone know if LR sharpens the lightness channel only, or does it work on RGB level (affecting saturation)?
Yep, PS has way more controls with full layers and masks. The adjustment/gradient brush in LR uses the settings from the "Details" panel so you are forced to use the same radius, etc. for all of your "creative" and "capture" sharpening which isn't ideal.
Also, LR sharpening is lightness channel only - no saturation/color edge problems.
It is pretty darn good and controllable sharpening actually. The mask slider w/alt-preview is really nice. The "detail" slider is actually a control for the sharpening algorithm - at the lowest levels it is a USM based sharpening at the highest level it is deconvolution sharpening. For capture sharpening it is very capable. The limitation is in selective creative sharpening where full fledged PS gives you the ability to use different settings on different masked layers.
kwalsh wrote:
It is pretty darn good and controllable sharpening actually. The mask slider w/alt-preview is really nice. The "detail" slider is actually a control for the sharpening algorithm - at the lowest levels it is a USM based sharpening at the highest level it is deconvolution sharpening. For capture sharpening it is very capable. The limitation is in selective creative sharpening where full fledged PS gives you the ability to use different settings on different masked layers.
Yes, I think you mentioned that before. The detail slider is very useful.
The masking slider I've been using with alt preview for years. I think I learnt that from the book about ACR 4 by Bruce Fraser.
Light_pilgrim wrote:
I see no more support for Windows XP
Wow!! This is bad. I am running XP 32bit here since years, no intention of switching! It is running smooth and reliable. No re-install since 3 years or so...
alba63 wrote:
Wow!! This is bad. I am running XP 32bit here since years, no intention of switching! It is running smooth and reliable. No re-install since 3 years or so...
I will not switch just for LR...
Bernie
It's two OS revisions back and will be 3 OS revisions back by this fall and it doesn't properly support newer hardware. I know people are fond of XP, but it's dead and buried as far as vendors are concerned. Especially XP 64 which is worse than Vista 64, let alone Win7 64.
XP is also out of support as of 2009 unless you're a commercial customer (Vista reaches End of Support this April, 2017 for Commercial customers) so no more bug/security fixes.
Bernie, you can setup Win7 to ape the real MS OS (XP) in most respects. Word is they wanted to compete with Mac with all the flowery visual garbage, but you can still get it looking clean in most respects - the file system now sucks however, and most apps have much less affordance and there is a proliferation of tiny controls, as seen in CS5.
It boots much faster also. Many corporates put off the intro as long as they could, and MS extended support much longer than intended, to their great embarrassment. But they are accustomed to that, of course, from decades of experience.
Just reading a great book on corporate software culture: Alan Cooper's 'The inmates are running the asylum', about the derelict programming community/industry. It helps...
I held on to XP for a long time, and actually it still runs on my netbook, but I grudgingly moved my desktop to Win 7. It has actually been great, I prefer it to XP. Skipping the driver growing pains of Vista was definitely the thing to do - but 7 is actually a mature and stable product.
That said, I can sympathize with feeling one is forced to change from something that is working as is. On the other hand, I'd much prefer the Adobe gang spend their time on new photographic features rather than supporting old OS's. It really does take a fair bit of effort to support each variation of OS and resources are limited. It is for the better of the community that they eventually cut off older OS's.
Do what I did; I installed Win 7 on a separate drive and dual booted for 12 months until I was certain Xp was no longer needed. I'm finally getting around to formatting my XP installation as I haven't booted into XP in 6 months.
The only thing I could not run on Windows 7 (64 bit) was drivers for an Epson flat bed photo scanner; I could have run them on Windows 7 32 bit, I believe. I just moved it to an older XP machine here at Chez MW.
Do tell. Maybe I need to rev up my Google Fingers again, it's been awhile since I last checked. I seem to recall finding some references to Vista 64 drivers but was unable to make 'em work.
I have the Epson perfection 4870, which was for a while top of the heap. Vista drivers should work fine if available. I also had to use Vista drivers to get sound working on my ancient laptop when I decided to migrate it to windows 7.
I'm not sure though if Epson released win 7 scanning software. I use Silverfast which is way better anyway.
