Sharpen Before or After Resizing?

If you have an unsharpened Tiff sized at 8x12 at 300ppi, and you want to print

it as a 4x6 at 300 ppi, is it best to downsize (Adobe Sharper) and then

sharpen the print or to sharpen the large file and then downsize?

 

I'd think it'd be sharpen second, but just wanted to make sure.

Hello Steve,

 

I always have the sharpen as the last step of the process.

 

Pete

First USM, then resize, and sharpen as the last step....

I would sharpen as the last step too.

ligth sharpen before just to remove the soft focus, and then at the end, at your final printable

size sharpen as you need. Evaluate at 50% for magazine and at 25% for inkjet, it work great to

make sure that you aplly the right amount of sharpening.

Sharpening is the last step before printing. I do it as follows:

a) Image->Mode->Lab Color

b) Channel->Hide Channel a (deselect it by clicking on the Photoshop �eye�).

c) Channel->Hide Channel b (deselect it by clicking on the Photoshop �eye�).

d) I select the Lightness Channel (by clicking the name �Lightness�)

e) Now I click Filters->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask and the following dialogue box pops open

and I set the Amount to 75%; the Pixel Radius to 1; and the Theshold to 0 and click OK.

f) Lastly, I click Image->Mode->RGB Color to return the image back to its right colour

space

 

Hope this helps. Cheers Don

Thanks to all for the input. By the way, for final sharpening I often use Fred Miranda's 10D CS Pro II action, which I believe does use the LAB method.

Resizing reduces sharpness, so it's better to sharpen after resizing. More, unsharp mask parameters tuning depends on size, another good reason to sharpen after resizing.

It depends. a better method is at least a two step sharpening process: Use a mild Capture Sharpener like Photokit expert Sharpener Capture set to medium edge and at at low , medium or high rez depending on the native resolution of the digital camera being used, and then an output sharpener targeted for the output size, resolution and media. it is more work but does, in my experience, yield better results than just sharpening just before output. But for a 4x6 print you probably won't see a difference.

In general, you should resample first then resharpen. I find it less objectionable to sharpen resampling artifacts than to resample sharpening artifacts ;-)

 

I think Ellis' two-stage process make a lot of sense - I will definitely try this next time. Low-level USM is essentially artifact free, which gives you more to work with in resampling - just overcoming the anti-aliasing filter effect. Post-resample sharpening at the final print size can be much more aggressive (e.g., 0.5 pixel radius and 250% at 300 ppi).