In Camera Sharpening Suggestions for D80

Hi. I'll be using my D80 for a trip and would like recommendations regarding the sharpening setting. There is apparently a school of thought that says, turn off all in-camera sharpening and make those adjustments in post processing. There is another school of thought, well, I assume there's another school of thought, that's why I'm asking the question. I will be shooting 90% JPEG, using RAW selectively. I don't have Nikon's Capture NX yet, but expect to use it for these photos. I have no other PP product other than what came in the box with my 18-135 kit.

Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks very much.

I set mine to +1 and don't any PP sharpening and am pleased with my shots...

They may not win any awards for sharpness, but to each his own.

As 99% of my shots are of my kids and family I don't like them too sharp looking.

Either way, shoot NEF and set to auto and adjust in NX as needed.

Here are some shots I took of my new niece with +1 in camera sharpening and no additional PP sharpening.

The WB is still bothering me, but these were shot under tungsten, indirect sunlight from window and bounce flash...

For me, they are sharp enough.

http://4toeds.net/welcome/

Those are wonderful shots. Thanks for posting them. I take your point on the sharpness for that type of subject and completely agree. Wouldn't want to change a thing. I'm wondering, if more is possible, if I might want it for landscapes, etc. Not sure since this is new to me. Thanks again.

that's the great thing about shooting RAW... you can experiment and with NX it is so easy to change all the default camera settings in real time on a full size image to see what you like best.

I find color mode IIIa, medium high tone, normal saturation, and +1 sharpening works the best for me.

Experiment... film is cheap.

Any other comments or advice, considering most shots will be JPEG?

I shoot plus 2 for sharpeneing on my D50. I turn it down to normal when I am going to do "portraits" to avoid over-doing the wrinkes and blemishes.

i use Ia for people and III for the rest. For non people shots it's sort of fun to boost saturation, too.

I never shoot NEF and don't enjoy PP work. I would rather take a few more pictures and try to alter the settings then on the computer freely use the delete button as my PP work. I switch the color space as I've said, and somethimes even use the uglier II setting too when I have problems with too much red in the skin tones (using incandescent WB).

At present I play with the tone settings to try to balance the shadows. If in doubt I will use low saturation.

As for sharpening and NEF, I've heard some people say that they use high in camera sharpening even though they shoot NEF. The reason is to have a picture where it is easier to see if you nailed the focus when you zoom in on the LCD. The high sharpening doesn't affect the NEF anyway, just the embedded JPEG.

Also if you use free Nikon capture then it normally takes the sharpening setting, by default. I would rather have some sharpening automatically than have to sit and decide how much each picture deserves in PP.

Guy Moscoso

I compared jpg with no in-camera sharpening, sharpening added using unsharp mask in Photoshop later to in-camera sharpening +1. I find the in-camera is often good, but sometimes oversharpens and causes halos, particularly with leaves and foliage against bright skies. One of the advantages to sharpening in post processing is you can do the sharpening on a duplicate layer, and then erase the sharpened layers over areas that are not the main subject (such as leaves in the background). This makes the sharp subject really pop.

So, go ahead and shoot jpg, but if you plan to post process anyway, why not save the sharpening for that step?

Is that you want to set everything in the camera so that you don't have to do PP in the first place (or maybe do it only on certain images, but not all). If you are going to take lots of pictures maybe you don't want to spend all that time in front of the computer.

With my D70s, when I take jpegs I usually know in advance how much PP I want to do. If I know I am going to do a lot (for example, with my vacation pics), then I will usually set sharpness (and contrast, BTW) down a bit. If I don't want to do a lot (for example, an event where I will be delivering a slide show or just sending files to a service for printing) I will usually turn sharpening to +1 (I also use color mode IIIa to increase saturation).

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Get NX I'd say. I turned the sharpening to "medium high" but that's so I can check focus better in the viewfinder, which is less clear when there's no sharpening. anyway, take your pick and if you don't like it, just uncheck it in NX and resharpen to your own satisfaction. If you do any PP you likely don't want much sharpening until you are done with everything else. And if there's much noise at all, you definitely don't want the sharpening on till you've dealt with the noise.

Thanks for all of your replies. So, are you saying that I can undo all my sharpening settings for JPEG shots, in Nkon Capture NX? That sounds pretty fool proof.

with capture NX, you would need to shoot in raw (NEF) format (or raw+jpg) and work with the raw image
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If you plan to buy CaptureNX then I would definately shoot RAW or RAw + JPEG. The control over White balance, sharpening, contrast etc. is superb !

I bought CaptureNX and only ever shoot RAW or RAw + JPEG

I have retrieved a few near disasters, only because I shot RAW, and often one only gets one chance to take the picture !!!?

It is a bit time consuming, but I love it !!!!!

Good luck

Regards,

Al

Veritas,

If I may be so impolite, may I correct you? You say that you like to "check focus better in the viewfinder" but you actually mean on the LCD. The viewfinder doesn't change no matter what you do in any menu. You check on the LCD after you've taken the picture.

Guy Moscoso

veritas366 said:

Get NX I'd say. I turned the sharpening to "medium high" but
that's so I can check focus better in the viewfinder, which is less
clear when there's no sharpening. anyway, take your pick and if
you don't like it, just uncheck it in NX and resharpen to your own
satisfaction. If you do any PP you likely don't want much
sharpening until you are done with everything else. And if there's
much noise at all, you definitely don't want the sharpening on till
you've dealt with the noise.

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