On Oct 24, 2005, at 8:23 AM, Shel Belinkoff wrote:
I work on my photos in PS using 16-bit. When it comes time to
sharpen,
after resizing and just before saving for the web, I convert the
image to
8-bit and then sharpen. I recently read that sharpening in 16-bit is
"better" and then converting to 8-bit just before saving the file.
So, what's the best way to sharpen for this situation?
Sharpening is a deep subject and no one answer is guaranteed to be
100% correct for all images.
My general process is to do primary sharpening at full resolution,
maximum bit depth after RAW conversion ... Photoshop's tools for
sharpening and selective sharpening are much more sophisticated than
Camera Raw tools.
I then apply sharpening specific to the use of the image for
particular rendering needs ... print size has an impact on how much
sharpening should be applied. Since Photoshop and the print drivers
are now doing a good job of taking my [EMAIL PROTECTED] documents and
transferring the data per the printer's needs, I generally keep them
at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Downsampling an image to web resolution usually affects both apparent
sharpness and gamma, so I apply a Curves correction and touch up the
apparent sharpness with a light USM pass (usually around 0.7 pixels,
40-55%, 2 threshold) to bring back the original impression as best I
can. Whether this happens in 16bit or 8bit per channel mode doesn't
seem to make too much difference as the resolution is so low at this
point, although there are more losses incurred in 8bit mode.
Godfrey
