Nik's RAW Presharpening Filter: usable late in workflow?

[leigh_edwards]

Since purchasing a D300, whose NEF files are incompatible with the version of Photoshop I have installed on my

computer (CS2), I've become enamored with Nikon's own Capture NX 2 editing software. The new workflow I envision

would have me do most of my "development" and editing in Capture NX, then switch to Photoshop (after converting

from NEF to TIF) for noise reduction and sharpening. I use Nik's Sharpener Pro 2.0 plug-in for sharpening.

 

The Nik plug-in has a "RAW Presharpening Filter" that is supposed to be used first, prior to other edits. The

manual says, "Apply the RAW Presharpening filter to RAW images as soon after opening the image within your image

editing application as possible." A later sharpening filter is based on the desired output format. But my

question is, how important is this, really? Can't I do all my other edits in Capture NX first, then apply the

Raw Presharpening filter as one of the final steps prior to printing? Or do I really need to have a

back-and-forth workflow where I start in Capture for Raw processing, then switch to Photoshop for the Raw

Presharpener, then back to Capture for editing, then back to Photoshop for NR and final sharpening?

 

Or should I stop using the Presharpener altogether?

[ellis_vener_photography]

According to my conversations with the late Bruce Fraser who pioneered the idea of a multi stage sharpening

workflow ( "capture" (raw); custom or localized; and a final sharpening pass targeted at the reproduction method

, resolution and size --and at each stage his method is very adjustable --the intensity can be adjusted for edge

width and in the capture stage for camera resolution, and in the custom stage brush width -- see

http://www.pixelgenius.com/sharpener/index.html for details ) any manipulations that have an effect on all of

the pixels in the photo should , in the best of all worlds, be done before ANY sharpening is applied.

 

Both the current versions of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and ACR 4.4.1 (PsCS3) have sharpeners built in. These are

essentially implementations of the Photokit Cexpert Capture Sharpener and are applied as a last step after your

other "global" processing steps in Lr and ACR are done when rendering the raw file to TIFF, PSD or JPEG form.

[kevin_kennedy3]

<p>Hi Leigh<br>

Well I use Aperture 3 and I have the Complete Nik Software Collection, but I assume the work flow would be similar in PS.<br>

I have discussed this with Nik and they currently advise to first apply any required Noise Reduction<br>

( Dfine 2.0 ) followed by Raw Pre-sharpener ( Sharpener Pro 3.0 ). Remember to shoot your Raw images with any<br>

camera sharpening turned off. Output Sharpening should be done last after any other adjustments.<br>

Nik have a very good selection of online training videos and have regular Webinars which I find very useful.<br>

Regards, Kevin</p>

[raysgallery]

<p>I use the Kik Software with PS, LR & Aperture. I learned the Nik Software using it in PS first, so that my be why I prefer using it there. I just switched to Mac & Aperture, so I'm still out on LR or Aperture.</p>