Sharpening is typically best done at the end, after manipulations, and
catered to a particular size/resolution/use. With that in mind, if you want
to use Nik, but it over sharpens for you, here's how I'd apply it. This is
but one way, but it's a good down and dirty way, short of sharpening
individual channels, or applying blending masks, or layer blending sliders.
You should save and archive a copy of your finished file with layers and
all, but without sharpening. This will be your master file for repurposing
later (other uses at other sizes). But before closing that file dupe it,
flatten the dupe, and scale it to size. Leave your full resolution file
unsharpened and save it. Now you have a flattened version to sharpen that
has just one layer. Drag that layer to the new layer icon of the layers
pallet, so that your file now contains two duplicate layers stacked on top
of each other. Make the top one active and set it's mode to Luminosity, and
apply Nik to that layer only. Now you can adjust the opacity slider of that
layer to set the final amount of sharpening. Your sharpening is now
variable. Setting the sharpened layer to luminosity reduces aberrant color
fringing. It is similar to converting the file to LAB, and sharpening just
the Luminosity channel.
If you want to get fancier still, you can now add layer masks to the
sharpened layer, or double click it to access the Layer Options and apply it
with blending sliders.
Todd
> Well, now that I am done building the pages, I admit that contrary to my
> initial optimism, when I view the completed pages, they are oversharpened.
> Darn. I wanted this to work better. I'll play with it some more, but I
> suspect I've thrown away the money.
>
> I'll look into what you just suggested.
>
> Tom> At 19:24 09-09-01 +0000, you wrote:
>>> I find
>>> Nik Sharpener utterly useless-- it ALWAYS oversharpens, no matter what
>>> settings I use.
>>
>>
>> Agreed. I've seen it in action and think it's grossly overpriced for what
>> little it does as opposed to custom Photoshop actions or packages like
>> UltraSharpenPro.
>>
>>> I can do a better job with careful settings on PS's USM
>>> tool, sharpening individual channels, etc. The BEST way is to use one of
> the
>>> PS Actions that creates a custom edge mask for you image before you apply
>>> USM. I forget the URL for Johnny's versions, but there is also a very
> good
>>> one from Katrin Eismann at www.digitalretouch.org.
>>
>>
>> See ftp://ftp.pinkheadedbug.com
>> and
>>
>>
>
>
