I think a good resizing routine is quite important so i would like to share my information and learn about yours.
I was introduced to step sharpening in a post by denoir and since the developed several skripts on my own.
What i do today is to export an 6mp image from LR 4 which i then resize in PS using a two-step script
In my experience the results are no worse than if i resize from 16mp but resizing takes less than a second vs ca. 10seconds with my old script. If i feel that the resulting image is oversharpened i reduce the opacity of the sharpened layer until it looks ok.
Recently i found this article by Andreas Reisch, it is in german but he provides a step-sharpen script which is pretty easy to use plus it autodetects edges, and doesn't oversharpen them. Using my script i sometimes have to use a mask to avoid this problem.
For non PS-useres this thread might be interesting.
Okay here are some examples:
(normally i would have masked the contrast edge in the middle of the image but i didn't to contrast it with Andreas script)
Andreas Resch's script looks pretty good. I'll have to try that some time.
Btw, are you sure that flickr isn't adding sharpening to the images that you've posted above, or does it only do that for downsized versions of the uploaded original (1024/640 wide)?
Regarding the stepped resizing: in my experience its main benefit is less aliasing, but I've seen only a very small difference between 2 and 3 or more steps, so I stick with 2. I think it's most important to choose the right sharpening radius and strength. You can do a little less in before and between the resizing steps and do one or more 0.1 radius smart sharpens after resizing to prevent sharpening halos.
Thanks for sharing Phillip. I started step downsizing with a script by Alex Nail a few years ago. I altered it gradually over time but the current version, I have to admit, took heavy influence by an action you posted on Flickr a couple of months ago :-)
Now of course I have to check the Andreas thing. My action creates three layers where the bottom one is more or less unsharpened, so I can mask off any background from any sharpening at all. For the top layer with the hardest sharpening I set opacity (or delete) or simply mask depending on subject.
I think I regularly oversharpen images, I just dont have the fidelity in my eyes to tune it "exactly" - whatever that is. Of course it also depends on output media, now with various Retina dsiplays out on the market images gives a different impression compared to an "old" laptop with less than 100 DPI.
I find stepped micro-contrast boosting to produce much more favorable results without any chance of dreaded halos at any point in the process. No sharpening needed. There are supposedly anti-halo sharpening filters around but I haven't run into any. Certainly none of the provided filters which ship with PS are. Which I think is pretty lame given PS's list price!
All of Philip's examples above are "over sharpened" with annoying halos IMO.
I use layers, like wfrank I keep the original layer for use at sensitive areas, and then it is all about selective sharpening, and sometimes blurring.
I agree with da bifurcator about the halos in the given samples.
Bifurcator wrote:
I find stepped micro-contrast boosting to produce much more favorable results without any chance of dreaded halos at any point in the process. No sharpening needed. There are supposedly anti-halo sharpening filters around but I haven't run into any. Certainly none of the provided filters which ship with PS are. Which I think is pretty lame given PS's list price!
All of Philip's examples above are "over sharpened" with annoying halos IMO.
What do we mean by "micro-contrast boosting"? Are we talking something like the ACR/LR Clarity slider? I find judicious use of Clarity sometimes beneficial, but to me, it has the same risks of introducing ugly artifacts as sharpening, just different artifacts.
I use one of those HP 24" wide gamut screens. It's 1920*1200, good but not extreme. There is no problem seeing the halos in all of the images. With "seeing" I don't mean it's possible to see but in a thread talking about sharpening it jumps out. I suspect it would be clearly visible in a thread name differently also. It's too much in my opinion and I would have masked it out and stayed happy with the sharpening for the other regions.
i sent bif the full resolution image, looking forward to what he does with it.
okay here is my version as i would usually have developed it:
In my eyes those sharpened with Andreas' skript are fine, but i was also happy with those in my wales-thread which many found oversharpened (i can see why and now i mask halos out but i hadn't seen it on myself).
I just did a bunch of tests myself. I had a multi step action which I had used but which always looked to gritty to me. I experimented and found I preferred to downsize using Bicubic smoother all in one step from a 5116 wide to 900 wide and then apply Topaz with all settings at 0.03 which is a very mild sharpen.
My workflow does all other sharpen in ACR (don't have LR). I have 50, 0.6 7 and mask at 50 and slide the mask. Clarity 20 is the only other sharpening used. None in Photoshop after opening and until downsizing.
I am a recovering over sharpener.
The real issue is too much compression to start with. When will the web grow up and allow at least 1800 wide? The guys with 36mpixels don't have a chance to show us what they can do.
okay, lets make a challenge out of it:
you can find a 24mp 16 bit file here.
Now show us your resized version! I would suggest 1280 so that one can easily compare the images.
But this TIFF image has already been sharpened. So more sharpening (or trying to show a different method all together) just messes it up. Without posting the RAW this is senseless IMO.
Bifurcator wrote:
But this TIFF image has already been sharpened. So more sharpening (or trying to show a different method all together) just messes it up. Without posting the RAW this is senseless IMO.
