The purpose of Nik Software's Sharpener Pro 3.0 is to sharpen an image according to certain criteria. You don't just choose an overall sharpening adjustment, but you do it according to the intention of the output. Some programs for enlarging images also use similar types of criteria. This program incorporates special algorithms designed for digital photography. It is geared toward photographers. It offers two types of sharpening, Raw Presharpening and the Output Sharpening. It is designed for Output sharpening; Display (what you see on the screen) is a type of Output. It is very exact as to type of paper, printer dpi, etc. I will go into this in the review. Nik Software advocates either a 1 or 2 step process. They state that most photographers will only use Output Sharpening. They advocate using this method or, for finer results, adding Presharpening to it. If you are starting with Presharpening, which you can only do with camera raw images, you turn off the sharpening in Camera Raw, for example if using Adobe Photoshop, as well as in your digital camera. Then, you and apply a small amount of sharpening to the image after converting the RAW file and after any noise reduction has been applied. The greatest amount of sharpening is applied right before output using specific criteria.
Nik plug-ins share a basic uniformity of interface and type of controls. This lessens the learning curve a lot although it doesn't eliminate it when using the different programs. I will be treating each of my reviews on Nik Software plug-ins individually so there probably will be some repetition of features. One of the basic features is U Point® Technology which relies on Control Points. Using these Control Points, you can determine how much or little you affect the localized area.
Sharpener Pro and Dfine are, to be honest, the weak points in the DxO Nik Collection. The other plug-ins are important creative tools as valuable now as ever, but Sharpener Pro and Dfine do feel like throwbacks to an earlier time and the world has moved on since then. Review: Sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro 3. Version 3 of the sharpening plugin from Nik Software is reviewed. There are a number of tutorials and demos of the software available on the Nik Software site.
Depending on how many of the plug-ins are installed, this box will vary. You can set up the parameters so it will open whenever you open Photoshop. To access the Sharpener Pro 3 screen, click on the word Sharpener Pro 3. The other Sharpener Pro 3 options will be explained later in the review. This plug-in can also be used as a Smart Filter and there is a lesson on the Nik website on how to do this.
Below is the interface showing the Raw Sharpening features. Notice that there is Global and Selective.
Below shows the same image with added Selective sharpening by means of Control Points. Both, according to the instructions, are to be used judiciously since the Output sharpening is the key to this program.
Below is an image that first went through Dfine 2 and, then, just the global setting for the Raw Sharpening in Sharpener Pro 3.
The Opacity sliders determines the amount of sharpening you will be applying or eliminating. The U Point® powered Control Points for Output sharpening are more complicated and there are more of them.
In Selective Sharpening, the Control Points override the 'apply to entire image' sharpener. For example, if you choose an opacity of 0%, you will eliminate any prior global sharpening for that specific area.
As stated earlier, Presharpening is an option that Nik Software believes will only be used by a few photographers while the emphasis should be on Output sharpening. Below is the interface to the Output Sharpening Option.
Below is an enlargement of the right panel. Notice the words in orange 'No preset selected.' You can create a preset for all sharpening for a certain type of output and access it for quick results.
The first step to take is to decide on your output. Output stands for a visual representation.
There are three types of sharpening available: Adaptive is overall sharpening; Creative gives many refinements to the Adaptive; and either Control Points or Color Range adds Creative Sharpening to certain areas. I will give examples of Color Range later. Below show a screen capture of the Control Points for Output sharpening.
I created four different output images using inkjet as my output device. You will notice a difference in the sharpening of all of them. The one that is sharpened the most aside from Display is Inkjet Matte, then, Lustre and Glossy. The original images were set to a size of 100% and screen captures were taken of sections. Below I explain a little about sharpening of Display and of Output for the inkjet printer.
There is a little confusing when it comes to trying to see how these various output settings differ visually. You can keep a consistency when comparing different inkjet paper type outputs, for example, but when you try to compare the Display, using the same settings, you can't really. This is because when you set the Display, you set the Adaptive Sharpening, then the Creative Sharpening to modify it. When you set the sharpening for Inkjet, the Adaptive disappears and you use the Creative. Below are the setting I used. This does not present a problem for work, necessarily, but it does when I try to show how each will look under constants. The Display might seem over sharpened in the example above. I do not use that much sharpening when I output an image for display on the web.
As stated earlier, the final sharpening will be determined by the type of output. I have a problem with this. I, often, use my work for multiple types of output. However, this can be solved by using the plug-in as a Smart Filter because you can go back into the filter and change the Output. below is an example of how this works. I need to emphasize the importance of using a Smart Filter if you want to change the types of output but keep Selective controls such as Control Points.
To go back into the plug-in, click on the layer with the arrow.
I decided to do some testing not using the Smart Filter Approach. I took an image with an output set at Display and re-opened it in Sharpener Pro 3, Output Sharpener. Then, I set all the controls to reflect 0% sharpening and set the output to inkjet-Glossy. There was a difference between this image (one on the left) and the true glossy output image. Thus, there is no easy way that I could find to change your printer, paper type within a printer or go from display mode to printing mode.
I demonstrated using Control Points, now I will show a screen capture using Color Range.
Tools are a category that allows you to apply sharpening to parts of an image by creating a mask. You select 'Brush' in the interface and that takes you to Tools where you decide on the type of tool to use. You set the sharpening as you want it to be. It will only affect the area 'brushed.'
When you select a software plug-in from the list, if tools are available, they will show up on that menu. The menu was shown in the beginning of the review. The tools for Sharpener Pro 3 are: Paint, Erase, Fill, and Clear. When you use a Smart Filter, you can't use these tools.
To get the full benefit of the program, you must go beyond the lessons on the Nik website and delve into the manual. The interface is not as intuitive as it might seem. For example, in Presharpening there are two controls: Adaptive which is a global control and, then, when using Control Points, there is another global control. The manual gives very little space to discussing these options. They can be figured out by trial and error, but I would like to see more documentation on PreSharpening. In Output Sharpening there are three types as stated earlier- Adaptive, Creative, and Selective. To understand these the manual must be read. The manual deals well with Output Sharpening but is sketchy on PreSharpening.
The trend today seems to be away from just sharpening an image to sharpening it for specific output such as display or print and with print paper. It is obvious that a matte print needs more sharpening than a glossy one. To be able to change Outputs, you need to use the Smart Filter Approach. The only drawback to this is that the tools are not available. I, personally, like the Presharpening option a lot since I believe it gives me a good base from which to start. I will use this plug-in a lot utilizing the Smart Filter. Once you understand all the variations for sharpening, it is very powerful and definitely useful.
The software sells for $199.95 with upgrades from prior versions 1 and 2 available through the Online-Store. You can download a 15 day full working demo.
You can purchase the plug-ins separately or in different bundles. I will be reviewing all the programs in the Complete Collection:
'The Complete Collection includes all of Nik Software’s latest award-winning plug-in software titles for Photoshop®, Lightroom® and Aperture™ including: Dfine® 2.0, Viveza™, Color Efex Pro™ 3.0, Silver Efex Pro™, and Sharpener Pro™ 3.0.'
You can find out more about Sharpener Pro 3 by clicking on it. You can, also, find out more about the many plug-ins produced by Nik Software by going to their website of http://www.niksoftware.com.
Nik Software products Reviewed:
Nik Color Efex Pro 3
Sharpening your image in the best way can be tricky since there are so many steps along a post-processing workflow, where you could sharpen. So when should you sharpen and should you only do it once?
Many photographers and the guys over at Nik Collection by Google suggests that you sharpen your image three times. The logic behind this is pretty simple and is not tied to a specific software. It is the approach to sharpening that matters. However, in this tutorial, I will use Nik Collection Sharpener Pro 3 Pre-Sharpener / Output Sharpener plugins. The whole Nik Collection has recently been made free.
3-Step Sharpening Logic
First, a subtle pre-sharpening will remove the softness that comes from the anti-aliasing filter in your camera.
Secondly, all areas of your image might not require the same amount of sharpening, why it makes sense to apply some creative sharpening to selective areas only.
Finally, outputting your image for print and web use requires a different amount of sharpening, because the image size and the intended viewing distance is very much different for an 800px wide web image and a 30-inch print.
The first step towards master sharpening in Photoshop is to let go of the tempting idea of sharpening the whole image in one go using the sharpen slider in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw.
Step 1: Pre-Sharpening
The global sharpening slider in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom can work well for pre-sharpening as long as you remember to keep it very subtle. If you go too far with the pre-sharpening, you will get issues later on.
The idea with pre-sharpening is just to remove softness and get a better starting point for creating precise selections. The anti-aliasing filters the many cameras cause a bit of softness in the raw image file. You address this with pre-sharpening.
It is not meant to be so strong that it introduce noise to the image, but just enough the get more refined edges. Anyway, it is better to look out for noise appearing due to sharpening, because then you have gone way too far.
In the image above, which is zoomed in at 300% you can see the very subtle sharpening done in the pre-sharpening step.
Nik Collection’s Pre-sharpener and Noise reduction plugins tool does a fantastic job in keeping this very subtle and automatic if you use Nik Collection plugins. Run the RAW Pre-Sharpener first and then the Define tool to control the noise. Just remember to disable Lightroom’s or Adobe Camera Raw’s default sharpening before going into Nik Collection/Photoshop.
Click here to see a complete workflow for using the Nik Collection Plugins.
Step 2: Creative Sharpening
Creative sharpening is about directing the viewer to a part of the image where your subject is.
The term creative sharpening emphasizes that this sharpening is done as a creative touch instead of just using a global slider to sharpen the whole image, making everything sharper.
If you have an image with a narrow depth of field, you don’t want to sharpen the out of focus areas canceling out the effect of using a large aperture. In landscape images, you often don’t want to apply the same amount of sharpening to lakes, oceans, and the sky as you would to rocks, building and other very solid elements in your photo. Applying global sharpening will not be a perfect solution.
Creative Sharpening in Nik Collection
You can use the Nik Sharpener Pro 3: Output Sharpener tool with control points to create a very precise selection of what you want to sharpen. For creative sharpening, just keep the output sharpening method set to default (display output).
One of the strengths of using Nik Collection’s tools for sharpening is the use of control points, which lets you make precise selections with only a few clicks.
In the image below I have placed eight control points on the rocks to get an accurate mask of the what I want to become sharper. To keep the sky and water from being affected, I could place a few extra control points there and just set the Sharpening strength of these extra control points to zero. It took just 30 seconds to create this mask.
There are four sliders that affect how the creative sharpening is applied. All of them work on a global level unless you apply control points. When applying control points, you can change the settings of each control point and thereby control the how the sharpening is applied to specific areas of the image.
Output Sharpening Strength
This slider is the main slider to adjust the global sharpening applied to the image.
The Structure Slider
With the structure slider, you can either emphasize texture and fine details or reduce it for a smoother surface.
Local Contrast Slider
This slider controls local contrast throughout the image. Increasing the slider increases edges of small objects while pulling the slider to the left, will lower the contrast of edges and give a diffusing effect.
Focus Slider
Pulling this slider to the right will increase the overall strength of the adaptive sharpening and moving the slider to the left decreases the adaptive sharpening, giving a slight blur effect.
Step 3: Output Sharpening Depends On How You Will Use The Image
Depending on whether you want to print your image or use it on the web, you should use sharpen to different output formats to get the best results.
Sharpening for Print
If you are planning to print your image, you can apply another smart sharpening filter to the areas that need sharpening. Prints often become better if you give your image a little extra sharpening.
However, I use Nik Collection Sharpener plugin to help optimize the image to both the printer, the paper type and the intended viewing distance.
Sharpening for The Web
I normally use Photoshop instead of the Nik Sharpener Pro plugin when sharpening for the web.
When resizing an image to a size that is optimal for use on the internet, it loses sharpening to an extent that it looks kind of soft.
Therefore do the resize first and then apply sharpening again by using Filter >> Sharpen >> Sharpen in Photoshop.
If you don’t think the file looks sharp enough, duplicate the layer by using CMD+j (Mac)/CTRL+j (Win) and apply sharpening again.
Concluding words
I hope this 3 step sharpening workflow helps you become more aware of how and when to sharpen your image. As I mentioned, in the beginning, there are many different tools, and ways to sharpen, but the key points here is to move away from thinking that sharpening is best applied globally to the whole image and forgetting to take the output format into consideration.
Peter Bredahl |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2022
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