Using the Print Sharpening feature in Lightroom
Print sharpening
Lightroom sharpens differently than Adobe Photoshop and uses different algorithms than either Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen. You can’t use any formulas you used to use for Photoshop here. Lightroom is sharpening the image as it comes from a linear gamma space. Okay, I admit, I am not an engineer and I can’t explain exactly what that means, but I can tell you that it means you need new formulas for using Lightroom.
Sharpening is always a subjective thing. The subject itself, the size of the print, the mood of the image, and the personal preference of the photographer all influence what might be used for sharpening. Print Sharpening offers three choices when you click the drop-down menu arrow, as shown in Figure 1: Low, Medium, and High.
Figure 1: Print Sharpening set to Low.
I recommend you experiment with them using these guidelines:
- Low. This is often a good choice for images of people, especially women and young children. It is useful for soft-focus or selective-focus images. Moody, atmospheric photos usually need less sharpening, too.
- Medium. This is a good choice for many subjects: groups of people, men, athlete portraits, flowers, gentle landscapes, and moody scenes with more detail.
- High. Reserve this for subjects that can handle it, such as architecture, landscapes with lots of textured rocks and other detail, dramatic abstract images, industrial scenes, and so on.
Where to go from here
For more information about Photoshop Lightroom, see the following:
