5 Responses to “Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom”

1. Michael Brochstein Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 2:04 am

   For this specific topic, Fraser & Schewe have written the (so far) definitive work on the subject. Well written with good illustrations and examples.
   Rating: 5 / 5

2. Júlíus Kr Björnsson Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 3:42 am

   It is a very easy job writing a review for this book, as it is simply the best explanation of digital photo sharpening I have ever seen. After reading it my understanding of the subject is totally changed and never again will I apply some undefined sharpening procedure to my photos as the book explains in a vivid way how to do this in an intelligent way. Simply the best.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. Robert S. Ditommaso Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 3:58 am

   Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) is the most thorough discussion I have ever come across on the subject. I belong to several photo clubs and the number one down fall of most competition prints I review is poor sharpening. Images either have not been sharpened or they are over sharpened to the point of looking “crunchy”. I recommend this book to anyone that takes his or her photography seriously. Unfortunately sharpening is not a flashy or exciting subject, but once you see how good your images really look when properly sharpened you will be glad you made the effort.
   
   What I really like about this book is the multifaceted approach to the subject. The book opens with an explanation of what sharpening is and why we need to sharpen digital images. After explaining why you need to sharpen the authors proceed to walk you through a variety of sharpening strategies accompanied by numerous images. While the before and after images are not always illustrative as the text would have you believe, the results are very visible in full size real world prints once you start to apply the techniques discussed. Lastly, the focus moves on to various sharpening techniques and an in-depth explanation of putting the tools to work.
   
   To me a review is most meaningful when you know a little something about the person writing the review. I became a full-time professional photographer in 2008, but have been an avid amateur photographer since the late 1970’s and have been selling my work since 2004. I started into photography with a pair of Minolta XD-11’s. I switched to Canon in 1999 and shot with a Canon 1VHS and 1D Mark II Professional Digital SLR until May of 2008. I currently shoot a Nikon D3 and while the Nikon files do have a different look directly out of the camera, in the end both the Canon and Nikon systems provide wonderful images once they have been worked in post process. I currently do my database and global image adjustment work in Adobe Lightroom 2 and all specialized postproduction is done in Adobe Photoshop CS4. I am toying with the idea of moving my database related work to Apple Aperture 2.
   
   I am a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and make extensive use of the abundant educational materials available on the member website. I have read well over three-dozen Photoshop training guides with one overriding goal in mind; producing the best images possible.
   Rating: 5 / 5

4. David B. Thomas Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 4:32 am

   As anyone who uses digital imaging software is aware, the vendor provides very limited support on how to achieve the best results from their product. Adobe, with their work books and help support may do better than most, but for the most part photographers are left to find their own way in developing an effective and asthetically pleasing workflow. In this book, Jeff Schewe has puled together an exceptional amount of information and outright wisdom on how the thoughtful photographer can best use current versions of PS, CRW and LR2 to manage image noise and sarpening from initial capture to output. Drawing on his work as a consultant to Adobe, supplier of some of their sharpening algorithms and alpha and bata tester for the subject applications, you are given a solid understanding of how the verious functions of the tool are actually operating at the pixil level as well as how to effecively integrate them into your image editing workflow. Unless you have the depth of knowledge of this author, you need this book and can expect to see immeidate improvement in your image editing results.

   Dave Thomas, Eugene, Oregon
   Rating: 5 / 5

5. R. Adams Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 6:48 am

   I was surprisingly underwhelmed by this book. I am normally a big fan of Jeff Schewe (see my Real World Camera RAW review for example) but this book really missed the mark for me. I really expected the same book layout presented in Real World Camera RAW, that is, a brief overview of the advantages of the proposed process, lots of in-depth examples to show the technical variations, and some additional “advanced” topics to help readers structure an improved process. Unfortunately, this book was plagued by a lack of focus and a theoretical approach that lacked substance.

   The book seemed to get lost in esoteric and sometimes confusing examples that are often concluded with summary paragraphs with this basic theme of, “You could do it that way but it’s not very good.” I was left with the feeling that the authors included numerous examples and provided great detail just to debunk a specific technique. I don’t really need 4 pages to get the point, simply recommend that we not use Sharpen or Edge Sharpen and be done with it.

   My interest was in seeing examples of differing sharpening approaches and the advantages and disadvantages of each. There are a few examples like that in the book, but they are, unfortunately, few and far between. In fact, if you’ve read Real World Camera RAW, you’ve actually seen one of the examples already. Perhaps I had false hopes in a book about sharpening focusing primarily on examples. I have no interest in Continuous Tone printing, I do very little Creative Sharpening for the majority of my work, and I only rarely sharpen images for Offset Press. With only a portion of the book aimed at photographers using Camera RAW and an Inkjet Printer, this book seems to be misaligned with the majority of photographers out there with DSLRs and a desire to understand sharpening.

   I really hope that the author retools this book for the third edition and simply goes after “Real World Sharpening in Camera RAW and Lightroom” and aims it towards the majority of photographers printing to inkjet printers. This approach would seem to have a much larger base of interested readers and would address the key concepts of sharpening as applied to a tangible workflow. As the book now stands, it’s a theoretical approach short on examples that leaves this reader needing additional information.
   Rating: 2 / 5

Leave a Reply