Lightroom sharpening upon transfer to external editor?

[melmann]

<p>I can't phrase this question well enough for search engines to hone in on a specific answer so here's it is in an expanded form:</p>

<p>In Lightroom (v2.6, Mac OSX 10.5.8) when I use the Photo>Edit In>Photoshop CS4 and the RAW image (.dng in my case) is transferred to PS is there any sharpening taking place? I'm learning to use NIK's suite of tools and in the Sharpening Pro 3.0 view it looks like my images are slightly sharpened already before I start moving the sliders around. Might just be noise (that's another tool to learn how to use!) but before I get too deep into a workflow I wanted to learn more about what's going on when the image moves from LR to PS.</p>

<p>On Import to LR I have the Develop Settings on None.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

[colin_mattson1]

<p>If you're applying sharpening in Lightroom (by default you are), yes—the transferred file will have capture sharpening applied.</p>

<p>Whatever the file's settings are in Lightroom, that's what's rendered and passed to your external editor.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>In Lightroom (v2.6, Mac OSX 10.5.8) when I use the Photo>Edit In>Photoshop CS4 and the RAW image (.dng in my case) is transferred to PS is there any sharpening taking place.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Maybe. It depends on the settings in Develop for sharpening (which is capture sharpening and useful). You can turn this off (default is on). The Export settings are output sharpening.<br>

See: http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/20357.html for an explaining of Capture Sharpening. The process described here is what’s being used inside of Lightroom and based on Bruce’s work. <br>

In such a raw workflow, you’re far better off not using Nik and using Lightroom since this is all applied in the raw processing pipeline. </p>

 

[melmann]

<p>As I noted, when importing RAW images to LR my Develop Settings are None. From this I understand there is no sharpening being performed upon import. I also have sharpening turned off in my camera.</p>

<p>Colin, I used to develop in LR and applied sharpening there to my RAW images but now I move them to PS CS4 for processing, including sharpening. I found more control with the CS4 sharpening tool. That is, until I started using the NIK software.</p>

<p>Andrew, NIK has two sharpening systems, one for RAW (apparently applied before processing in CS4) and output, which can be adjusted for the specific need such as display, inkjet, etc. Based on what you've said and my reading, this is the only place I'm applying sharpening to my images given my workflow. I looked over Bruce's article and recognize some of the masking techniques from other reading. I'll experiment with it vs. NIK and see which works for my images. His comparison to color management is apt - sometimes it feels like alchemy with unpredictable results....</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Andrew, NIK has two sharpening systems, one for RAW (apparently applied before processing in CS4) and output, which can be adjusted for the specific need such as display, inkjet, etc.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Both “systems” are the same in that they do not run though the ACR raw processing pipeline. They render a TIFF and apply the sharpening. </p>