Effects of sharpening not visible in Develop module

[nguzman]

In the Develop module, I can't see the effects of sharpening changes unless I'm in 1:1 view. I can crank Amount to 15' and Radius to 3.' and there is no change whatsoever in Fit or Fill views. Yet when I switch back to the Library module, the change is very apparent. I don't have anything against sharpening in 1:1 magnification, but most of the time I want to see the sharpening effect immediately in about 1:2, which is more how my images will be viewed on most monitors. I see this problem on both my 13 inch laptop monitor and on my 24 inch desktop monitor. Is this a known problem that we have to live with for a while?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

That's correct, and you'll find it's the same in ACR too. You have to zoom in to 1:1 to view the changes.

There is an exception - having rendered a 1:1 preview, whether by zooming in to 1:1 or by choosing Render 1:1 previews in the Library menu, you can then view the Fit or Fill image in Loupe mode (press E) and it will show the effect of the sharpening.

The reason for this is that in Develop mode/Fit view, you're seeing a rendering of the raw file resized to fit. When you view in Loupe mode/Fit view, you're seeing a rendering of the PREVIEW which has had the sharpening settings applied.

 

[nguzman]

That's correct, and you'll find it's the same in ACR too. You have to zoom in to 1:1 to view the changes.

There is an exception - having rendered a 1:1 preview, whether by zooming in to 1:1 or by choosing Render 1:1 previews in the Library menu, you can then view the Fit or Fill image in Loupe mode (press E) and it will show the effect of the sharpening.

The reason for this is that in Develop mode/Fit view, you're seeing a rendering of the raw file resized to fit. When you view in Loupe mode/Fit view, you're seeing a rendering of the PREVIEW which has had the sharpening settings applied.

Thanks for the explanation, Victoria. So, it's not a bug but rather a missing feature, IMO. I wish it could be consistent and provide a rendering with sharpening applied in Develop mode/Fit view. If LR Develop can show rendering of other effects in Fit view, I wonder why not sharpening effects?

I'm rethinking my workflow...I will probably defer sharpening until editing in PSCS3.

 

[Braders]

I think you'll find it is by design and is unlikely to change.

Sharpening should be viewed at 1:1, and there is many a debate and discussion on this at the Adobe LR forums....happy reading.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

It's mainly a speed issue, so very unlikely to change either in LR or ACR.

If the raw file (used in Develop mode) had to have full detail processing applied every time you made a change and then downsized to fit to screen, it would be frustratingly slow, whereas by the time it gets to Library mode, the previews's already rendered and not rapidly changing.

Also, viewing sharpening at anything less than 1:1 isn't 1''% accurate, just as in Photoshop, where anything less than 1''% is based on interpolated data.

 

[nguzman]

Thanks for the feedback on the reasons it's not likely to change. I think I'm beginning to understand.

However, the PS capability to show sharpening in less than 1:1 is useful, even if it's interpolated and not quite accurate. Most people do not view hi-res photos at full magnification on a monitor because they would only see a small fraction of the image. I usually don't resize my images for personal viewing. I feel that many programs do a decent enough job of rescaling to fit the monitor. If I sharpened at 1:1, I would have to intentionally oversharpen to get the sharpening effect I want at the lower magnification, and it becomes a guessing game. For this reason, I find it useful to see what sharpening looks like at about 1:2 view. The PS interpolated version is close enough for this purpose.

PS is able to accomplish this with good performance. Is this because it works with tif or psd instead of raw?