Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Sharpening in Camera Raw
If you shoot in JPEG, your digital camera applies sharpening to your photo right in the
camera itself, so no sharpening is automatically applied by Camera Raw. But if you shoot
in RAW, you're telling your camera to ignore that sharpening, and that's why, when you
bring a RAW image into Camera Raw, by default, it applies some sharpening, called “cap-
ture sharpening.” In my workflow, I sharpen twice: once here in Camera Raw, and once
more right before I output my final image from Photoshop (called “output sharpening”).
Here's how to apply capture sharpening in Camera Raw:
Step One:
When you open a RAW image in Camera Raw, by default, it applies a small amount of
sharpening to your photo (not the JPEGs or TIFFs, only RAW images). You can adjust this
amount (or turn it off altogether, if you like) by clicking on the Detail icon (it's the third
icon from the left) at the top of the Panel area, or using the keyboard shortcut
Command-
Option-3 (PC: Ctrl-Alt-3)
. At the top of this panel is the Sharpening section, where by a
quick glance you can see that sharpening has already been applied to your photo. If you
don't want any sharpening applied at this stage (it's a personal preference), then simply
click-and-drag the Amount slider all the way to the left to lower the amount of sharpening
to 0 (zero), and the sharpening is removed.
