They say the last thing you do after post editing is ..sharpen.
I have not sharpened an image for 9 months.Don't feel the need.
Who does and why...

I'll do selective sharpening on those borderline sharp images, usually just on the main focal point. There is one site in particular that is very picky on image sharpness. Without sharpening a little the image would never get accepted.   

Same I do selective sharpening but only that. Sharpening an image adds too much noise so you can guarentee its going to get rejected most of the time

Quote from: cdwheatley on February 05, 2009, 20:17
I'll do selective sharpening on those borderline sharp images, usually just on the main focal point. There is one site in particular that is very picky on image sharpness. Without sharpening a little the image would never get accepted.   

If you used a tripod and remote  switch you would not get "those borderline sharp images" IMO.
Even with  an image stabiliser built in to a lens you may still get camera shake if you don't 'hold' that shot for a few seconds.

Likewise - as and if when needed.
When I have to take out extra noise I will sharpen just a bit.

Quote from: shank_ali on February 05, 2009, 20:32

Quote from: cdwheatley on February 05, 2009, 20:17
I'll do selective sharpening on those borderline sharp images, usually just on the main focal point. There is one site in particular that is very picky on image sharpness. Without sharpening a little the image would never get accepted.   

If you used a tripod and remote  switch you would not get "those borderline sharp images" IMO.
Even with  an image stabiliser built in to a lens you may still get camera shake if you don't 'hold' that shot for a few seconds.

I shoot everything hand held, prefer to work that way. I might be a little pissed off when the next wave comes in and takes out my tripod, camera, and leaves me holding the remote.  I hear what your saying though. I do use a monopod on occasion.

It happens 

First thing I do is sharpening. It can give jaggy edges for isolation as example if you do it after. Also it give an overall perspective of where are the need for noise reduction or to use the layer mask...

I dont sharpen every single image, but most of them. The big thing is if you are going to print a digital image...then it definitely needs to be sharpened.

Partially depends on what you are shooting with.
My Canon 20 has a very strong AA filter and all images MUST be sharpened.

OTOH, my Canon 5D has a very weak AA filter and seldom requires any sharpening at all. If anything, at times images look a bit too sharp - in the case of people that lack perfect skin 

sharpening is USUALLY the last thing to do to an image, indeed. Most of the time - selective sharpening. in 90% of the cases the only sharpening I do is in LightRoom in raw workflow. If the image is slightly OOF then I'm using some cool plugins...
But in more than 90% of cases there is no sharpening needed.
I have a 5D.

Quote from: jmich on February 05, 2009, 21:35
I dont sharpen every single image, but most of them. The big thing is if you are going to print a digital image...then it definitely needs to be sharpened.

You have hit the nail on the head.The buyer can sharpen the image before going into print.
I do look and work on my photo's at 100% BTW

Don't you usually downsize shank? That has a sharpening effect, especially if you're using the bicubic sharper algorithm to do the downsizing.

Quote from: averil on February 05, 2009, 22:34
Don't you usually downsize shank? That has a sharpening effect, especially if you're using the bicubic sharper algorithm to do the downsizing.

I have in the past but getting payed $6.40 for an XL sale tends to lean you towards being more careful with your composition and no cropping 

It depends on which lenses you are using.
For macro work, you don't need any sharpening since macro lenses are the sharpest.
Most wide angle lenses are not sharp, especially on the borders, and you might need to apply some mild sharpening.
It also depends on size. The smaller the size the more sharp it looks.
It varies on a photo by photo basis.

I don't sharpen microstock images at all.

I do light selective sharpening by the supersharpen workflow (the Miz described it) in the lightness channel alone (convert to Lab colors) in a layer under the original.
If it's a landscape, I set the opacity for the original on top to 80%, but only for the land part and avoiding smooth gradients like sky and clouds where the added noise will be most visible.

For portraits, I use a soft erase brush 15-20% on the eyes, lip cracks and the nose opening (points of attention focus). Vonkara: on an isolation, never sharpen the borders to white of course. After flatten layers, I zoom in 600% (yes I'm a stupid pixelpeeper) and I blurr the single black pixels here and there with a soft brush 2px. The eye white gets blurred a little bit too with a larger brush.

Quote from: CCK on February 06, 2009, 15:30
I don't sharpen microstock images at all.

Me neither now.
I do like the term "pixel peeker".

Quote from: shank_ali on February 06, 2009, 17:11I do like the term "pixel peeker".

I'm always puzzled by a rejection for pixel distortion. When I zoom in at 800%, they all look perfectly square to me 

I use sharpening very rarely. I always try few different methods before I decide which one works best with specific image. In this image, the rock was pretty blurry

Quote from: whitechild on February 07, 2009, 15:06
I use sharpening very rarely. I always try few different methods before I decide which one works best with specific image. In this image, the rock was pretty blurry

Well next time put your tampons on and climb the rock and it wont be so blurry

If you shoot in raw (I do) you probably want to add some sharpening. I might be wrong, but from what I have heard raw photos tend to be on the soft side and need a little bit of sharpening.

I sharpen probably 99% of my images.  I only shoot raw and at least one (though usually two) runs of the Unsharp mask does the trick.  Granted, my work flow is not very practical...I do all my RAW conversions in Lightroom then open all images in PS for final tweaking which includes sharpening. 

Quote from: cdwheatley on February 05, 2009, 20:51
I shoot everything hand held, prefer to work that way. I might be a little pissed off when the next wave comes in and takes out my tripod, camera, and leaves me holding the remote.  I hear what your saying though. I do use a monopod on occasion.

It happens 

Could you please stop attaching images like this to your posts! 

I never sharpend an image... even if I use my crappy zoom-lense 

Quote from: RT on February 10, 2009, 23:18

Quote from: cdwheatley on February 05, 2009, 20:51
I shoot everything hand held, prefer to work that way. I might be a little pissed off when the next wave comes in and takes out my tripod, camera, and leaves me holding the remote.  I hear what your saying though. I do use a monopod on occasion.

It happens 

Could you please stop attaching images like this to your posts! 

ya cd, where do you get all these gorgeous women