As a long time user of Lightroom, I take a couple of things for granted. Taking part in Adobe’s BETA program for Lightroom offered a lot of insight into the inner workings of this “game changer” of a program. When I teach Lightroom, there are always several people with a good deal of knowledge about the program that don’t know some of the great features possible with this program.
Sharpening can be very mystifying. So many options, so many ways to confuse yourself and either over-sharpen, or under-sharpen your images. You’ve got to watch out for artifacts, halos, noise, edge contrast, and so on. Sharpening in Lightroom has a great “hidden” feature that is only 1 keystroke away. One important thing to note, all sharpening in Lightroom is directed solely at luminance data in your image. One of the old tricks in Photoshop is to sharpen only the L channel in LAB mode. The effect can be duplicated in standard RBG mode by running a normal unsharp mask filter on a duplicate layer and then fading it with Luminosity” selected. But this is kind of indepth Photoshop knowledge. Lightroom has this functionality built in at its core.
To get better sharpening results, it’s important to understand the meaning behind the dialog box.
Lightroom's Detail Section, "Sharpening"
There are 4 options in the Detail:Sharpening section of Lightroom’s Develop tab. The first is Amount. Basically, you can consider this as the “intensity” of the sharpening being done. If the slider is all the way to the left you are not sharpening at all, all the way to the right and you are maxed out on sharpening. Next is Radius. Radius is the width of the halo that will be present along edges within your image. Halos are what make images appear sharp, or over-sharpened if left to run awry. Then there is Detail. Detail settings control how much contrast must be present before the pixel is sharpened. Finally Masking. Masking judges the image based on contrasts and allows you to select (on a global view) which areas will be sharpened and which areas won’t. For instance, there is no need to sharpen a detail-less sky, you’ll only enhance any noise that is present. This is bad.
Another important tip for sharpening in Lightroom, always sharpen at 1:1 view.
So, after all that, here’s the magic keystroke to try next time you are sharpening in Lightroom. Once zoomed in at 1:1, hold down the alt/Option key as you move the sliders left and right. When you do this on the Amount slider, the image will turn black and white and allow you to judge contrast much easier and to see the actual sharpening taking place. With the Radius slider, the alt/option key will again turn the image black and white, but this time it is showing the actual size of the halo being created around edges. Too much of a halo, and you’ll ruin your image. You want it juuuuuust right (it really helps to think of porridge & mattresses…). The Detail slider with the alt/option key shows how the contrast in the image is affecting your sharpening process. Finally, Masking and the alt/option key – sliding the setting from left to right will show you how selective the sharpening is becoming. The white areas are being sharpened and the black areas are being masked out and not being sharpened. It’s very powerful, and even if you don’t fully understand what each option means or the technology behind it, the alt/option key can simplify things. It is the ultimate preview option. Remember, everything in Lightroom is non-destructive, so try the settings out, then try them in a different configuration and see which you like better. It only costs time, and spending time learning how each slider effects your image – well that’s a sound investment.
Now, get out and shoot – so you have more images to try your new techniques on in Lightroom!