Dear Mark Denney, I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for your exceptional teaching and the incredible techniques you’ve shared. Your guidance in editing and capturing stunning images has been invaluable to me. Through your work, I’ve discovered new perspectives and learned how to elevate my photography skills. Thank you for being an inspiration and for generously sharing your knowledge with the world. Your passion and dedication shine through, and I’m truly thankful for the impact you’ve had on my creative journey. Wishing you continued success and looking forward to learning more from you!
For those of us who are familiar with the use of a view camera the issues of sharpening a landscape scene were exactly those that you reference Mark. Thanks for this instructive and interesting presentation.
Well done. However, I'd do it in Ps. I will often apply an Orton effect but omit or eliminate the "subject" from that effect. The nice thing is that there are many ways to accomplish the same goal.
I often use the Orton Effect as well. Using a High pass filter with an inverted mask is also a great way to sharpen. It allows you to be very selective, while also having the option to control the opacity with each brush stroke if necessary.
Thanks Mark! I always tend to lean on clarity, I'm going to try texture more. I'm a portrait photographer but many of your tips translate well. Thank you!
Great to get a basic overview of the difference and different use cases for texture, clarity and sharpening. Will now be able to approach my edits less in the dark lol!
Dear Mark. Thank you so much for all your videos. They are among the very best fotografers can consume an get top information and new ideas. I hope you keep on presenting your experience.
Mark, as always, your tutorial videos are well-organized and easy to understand. This lesson on sharpening was a real eye-opener... thanks for sharing your knowledge.
As usual your lightroom tutorials are detailed and made simplistic and understandable. You have become my go to dude/person for lightroom talk. Thanks Mark
Great advice once again Mark. I was actually having a conversation with another TH-camr photographer just this week saying that natural fall off is way better than sharp front to back. I employ a lot of the techniques you have showed, as well as adding haze and reducing contrast, clarity and sharpness of the background. All the mentioned techniques help us portray was we saw in 3d in a 2d image. Hope you had a great birthday and we hope to see you in the UK sometime in the future. You will certainly love the Lake District!
Thanks! A wonderfully clear and concise video on "selective sharpening" with all of the "hows" and "whys". As a wildlife photographer, I often need the additional "selective blurring" when I am not using a super fast lens or there is not a great amount of distance between the subject and background. Is there a good way to create the soft backgound that is preferred by many wildlife photographers to make the subject stand out? Thanks for all of your very informative videos!
A really good and clear video. Excellent concept based on how humans determine things. Good clear reference to differences between clarity and texture and comparison to sharpening. Thank you!
An excellent tutorial as usual Mark. I took some landscapes recently. It needed some area locally to be sharpened. Your tutorial is just in time to work on that. Thanks mark.
I fully agree with you! But you should not forget that the first step to emphasise a subject is when you adjust the exposure triangle. You have to select a sufficient aperture (wide open to large aperture number) and set the focus to the right subject. Later on you can add additional sharpness during editing.
Hey Mark, I've been editing photos for years, yet it's amazing how many different ways there are to achieve your desired outcome. Loved this video, so clearly explains features and how to target them on the right areas of the image. Very well explained, and very informative! Quick question: with Lightroom, do you ever (or always) use the 'De-noise' AI feature before editing the sharpness of your images?
Bravo Mark. No I don't sharpen every photo. maybe half the time I'll play with it but often abort the sharping. Now maybe I'll use it more. We'll see with a little experimenting.
Thanks, Mark, for a really helpful video. I have started to think of sharpening as a comparative element in an image, but I was not sure how to use Lightroom to make the kind of localised adjustment that you demonstrated so clearly here. Just one question: with the filters, you could also have used the sharpness slider in the detail panel, but I guess that you have a reason to choose the texture slider instead?
Excellent video as always, Mark! I do have a question. In some of your photos, you purposely make them softer. Is there a certain criteria you use that determines whether you make it soft overall or bring out the details and sharpness? Looking forward to the next video!
Thank you Mark, this was a great video for me as I try to understand all the amazing options available on LR, PS and the one that I use, Adobe Camera Raw.
Great video, especially the difference between texture and clarity and a methodolgy to adjusting each. But seriously were you behind me taking this shot. I almost have exactly the same shot from a few weeks ago.
Love that image. Mine was taken about the same time of year, but almost 20 years ago. I was staying at a guest ranch and drove out early to catch the sunrise. I included the little wooden plank bridge over the culvert that's by the tree that you have in the left of your frame. All you can see is the wood from the bridge, not the pipe it's covering (assuming that all still there). The composition came together quite nicely. My problem is that I was shooting with a Sony, I think before they had SLRs. It was better than a point and shoot, but just barely. I couldn't shoot RAW with it, so I'm limited to high res JPEG. It was good enough for a 16x20 print. I had it matted with a very light faux leather-looking material, but I built the frame myself from a couple of red stained cedar pickets, so the color from the barn just pops front and center.
Thanks for the video. There's a lot of times I'd only used sharping within masks on localized area rather than globally too, besides the clarity/texture adjustments.
A very useful and informative video. Thanks, learned some new techniques. Just wondering, couldn't one use F stop, like f2.8 or f 5.6 to get detail to fall off into the scene. Also I was wondering what f stop setting you used in the barn scene Mark. Beautiful image btw.
There is a lot of truth in what Mark is saying. It is not always a good idea to have everything in the picture sharp. And this even holds for landscapes.
your example reminded me of a night sky photo that I recently edited. Milky way shining in the sky behind beautiful mountains, with a mountain/sky reflection in a lake in the FG. Obviously I worked to enhance the milky way since that was the reason for being there. But, I found myself obsessed with the need to bring out more clarity/sharpness in the mountains. And now I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't have. I did leave the mountain significantly darker, so the MW remained the shining star. Thoughts?
very useful advice, Mark. But I'm a bit confused: when I photograph a barn, the focus is on the barn and not on the area at my feet. So it starts a bit soft to become sharp at the level of the barn, and then softens gradually thereafter. I would think it's counterproductive to sharpen right from the front. I would do the same, but with the intersection of 2 linear gradients (minus the barn) in a soft to sharp in front of the barn and then sharp to soft starting at the barn. Just in the way we get natural depth of field. What do you think? I do not sharpen every photo I edit, but I do add some texture.
Thanks, Mark So how would using just the sharpen slider on your masked area compare to using texture + clarity? As you showed, clarity adds luminance, but so did your texture adjustment - albeit, less than clarity. I. don't think the sharpening slider does that.
my Question is that i often shoot at wrong time due to lack of time as a university student after the sunrise or at noon but during post processing i crate the drama in the sky using the masking and colour picker is it ok or if any suggestion for the colours of sky should i leve them neutral (faded ) greyish
It depends on the photo Mark and I tend to shoot a lot with something in the foreground so if you were shooting that hot you would probably sharpen the roof maybe or parts of it. It just depends on what you're looking for. I noticed a lot of the European photographers go the other way and everything is soft and they go for that kind of mushy look that I don't particularly like but they do where is a little bit like you I like things to Be Pin sharp it will be interesting to see the sharpening you need to add using the Nikon gear compared to FujiFilm and I'm not having a joke about that is that FujiFilm tend to have very sharp files even in there crop sensor.
I have not tried this yet but was wondering. After Sharpening the barn , could you have inverted the mask and then put your Linear Gradient tool in? The barn would have been protected from the changes. I guess I should just try it to see what happens.
If your focal point is on the barn, should the gradient you use for sharpening not move from that focal plane as well? Meaning: shouldn’t you use a radial gradient with it in the center, rather than a linear gradient leading towards it?
Thanks, learned a lot from your videos but not this time. The tittle "How to sharpen blurry photos... " is a bit misleading, cause you clearly started with a good sharp photo. Just curious if there is any acceptable technique to sharpen a trully blurry photo that you want to rescue. Thanks
I’ve seen photographers are afraid to shoot at f/16 or smaller for greater depth of field , because of defraction, so they shoot that wider aperture and focus stack. Also, it’s my understanding that sharpening should be the last step of your editing process. Hence, I always use the camera raw filter in Photoshop to sharpen my images before saving..
I am lazy person so never felt the need to sharpen any more than then C1 defaults. No selective sharpen, none of that. Maybe if I printed like 40x30 I may do some for that. I shoot GFX.
Same! I only add 1 or 2(of 10) on the sharpen tool in Canon DPP4 if it's going to print, the rest of the time i leave it as what the in camera profile(landscape etc) is set to or in my case the custom assigned to C1 i created
Dear Mark Denney,
I wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for your exceptional teaching and the incredible techniques you’ve shared. Your guidance in editing and capturing stunning images has been invaluable to me. Through your work, I’ve discovered new perspectives and learned how to elevate my photography skills.
Thank you for being an inspiration and for generously sharing your knowledge with the world. Your passion and dedication shine through, and I’m truly thankful for the impact you’ve had on my creative journey.
Wishing you continued success and looking forward to learning more from you!
Amazing comment! Thanks so much!
Took 10 years to figure out what you explained in 15 mins. Bravo. All those new to Lightroom have no idea how much time Mark saved you here.
Best comment of the day!!
@maurettibarbabietolo4646 Thank you🙏
Totally agree!
Thanks!
Thank you for the clear explaination of the differences between the sharpening techniques in Lightroom. Very helpful.
Glad to help my friend!
For those of us who are familiar with the use of a view camera the issues of sharpening a landscape scene were exactly those that you reference Mark. Thanks for this instructive and interesting presentation.
Well done. However, I'd do it in Ps. I will often apply an Orton effect but omit or eliminate the "subject" from that effect. The nice thing is that there are many ways to accomplish the same goal.
I often use the Orton Effect as well. Using a High pass filter with an inverted mask is also a great way to sharpen. It allows you to be very selective, while also having the option to control the opacity with each brush stroke if necessary.
Thanks Mark! I always tend to lean on clarity, I'm going to try texture more. I'm a portrait photographer but many of your tips translate well. Thank you!
Great to get a basic overview of the difference and different use cases for texture, clarity and sharpening. Will now be able to approach my edits less in the dark lol!
Dear Mark. Thank you so much for all your videos. They are among the very best fotografers can consume an get top information and new ideas. I hope you keep on presenting your experience.
Mark, as always, your tutorial videos are well-organized and easy to understand. This lesson on sharpening was a real eye-opener... thanks for sharing your knowledge.
As usual your lightroom tutorials are detailed and made simplistic and understandable. You have become my go to dude/person for lightroom talk. Thanks Mark
Great advice once again Mark. I was actually having a conversation with another TH-camr photographer just this week saying that natural fall off is way better than sharp front to back. I employ a lot of the techniques you have showed, as well as adding haze and reducing contrast, clarity and sharpness of the background. All the mentioned techniques help us portray was we saw in 3d in a 2d image. Hope you had a great birthday and we hope to see you in the UK sometime in the future. You will certainly love the Lake District!
Thanks so much!
Thanks! A wonderfully clear and concise video on "selective sharpening" with all of the "hows" and "whys". As a wildlife photographer, I often need the additional "selective blurring" when I am not using a super fast lens or there is not a great amount of distance between the subject and background. Is there a good way to create the soft backgound that is preferred by many wildlife photographers to make the subject stand out? Thanks for all of your very informative videos!
A really good and clear video. Excellent concept based on how humans determine things. Good clear reference to differences between clarity and texture and comparison to sharpening. Thank you!
HOLY MOLY!!! I've been using LR for years and never done this amazing technique (🙀embarrassed!) -- THANK YOU SO MUCH, Mark!
Great to hear it was helpful!
Thanks Mark, It's always good to see your videos. I have learned a lot today about selective sharpening.
An excellent tutorial as usual Mark. I took some landscapes recently. It needed some area locally to be sharpened. Your tutorial is just in time to work on that. Thanks mark.
I fully agree with you! But you should not forget that the first step to emphasise a subject is when you adjust the exposure triangle. You have to select a sufficient aperture (wide open to large aperture number) and set the focus to the right subject. Later on you can add additional sharpness during editing.
Thanks Stefan!
What a little beauty this video is. I never thought about it too much but I will definitely give it a go next time I go over new photos in Lightroom.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is one of those “why didn’t I think of that” ideas! Thanks. I’ll try it today.
Hey Mark,
I've been editing photos for years, yet it's amazing how many different ways there are to achieve your desired outcome. Loved this video, so clearly explains features and how to target them on the right areas of the image. Very well explained, and very informative!
Quick question: with Lightroom, do you ever (or always) use the 'De-noise' AI feature before editing the sharpness of your images?
Great video Mark. Thanks for sharing these sharpening techniques.
Fantastic video, I learn something every time I watch one. Thank you for taking time to make these videos.
This makes so much sense. Thank you for pointing out the obvious so succinctly!
Great to hear it was helpful!
Thanks Mark! Another excellent use of the tools available in LRC! You Rock!!!
Excellent
Bravo Mark. No I don't sharpen every photo. maybe half the time I'll play with it but often abort the sharping. Now maybe I'll use it more. We'll see with a little experimenting.
Another outstanding, well reasoned presentation with great clarity -- thank you!
Great advice on drawing the viewer to your subject.
I often raise texture and reduce clarity. I find this subtle effect to be quite nice in a lot of landscape images.
As always, thank you for sharing the knowledge! Bonus points for the Game Boy on your desk
Thanks, Mark, for this excellent explanation of the sharpening process. Picked up some tips for future use.
Thank ya, Mark! Fantastic video. 👏
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice video Mark. How does this approach to sharpening impact your lens aperture selection in the field?
Great tutorial a great overview of the use of the tool Thanks
Thanks, Mark, for a really helpful video. I have started to think of sharpening as a comparative element in an image, but I was not sure how to use Lightroom to make the kind of localised adjustment that you demonstrated so clearly here. Just one question: with the filters, you could also have used the sharpness slider in the detail panel, but I guess that you have a reason to choose the texture slider instead?
I didn't know you can use the marque tool when choosing and object. Good to know, Thanks Mark
Very handy video Mark. I think I'm pretty good in Lightroom these days but there were a couple of very useful tips here that I wasn't aware of
Great 'sharpening' tips for LR; perhaps a video on similar 'sharpening' tips for PS would be great too!
PS > Filter > Camera Raw Filter -- this will give you the tool set Mark is demonstrating.
Excellent tip and great explanation of it use. Thanks for all your tutorials!
Excellent video as always, Mark! I do have a question. In some of your photos, you purposely make them softer. Is there a certain criteria you use that determines whether you make it soft overall or bring out the details and sharpness? Looking forward to the next video!
Thank you Mark, this was a great video for me as I try to understand all the amazing options available on LR, PS and the one that I use, Adobe Camera Raw.
Great video, especially the difference between texture and clarity and a methodolgy to adjusting each. But seriously were you behind me taking this shot. I almost have exactly the same shot from a few weeks ago.
Super tips, thanks.
Still a photog newbie.
Love that image. Mine was taken about the same time of year, but almost 20 years ago. I was staying at a guest ranch and drove out early to catch the sunrise. I included the little wooden plank bridge over the culvert that's by the tree that you have in the left of your frame. All you can see is the wood from the bridge, not the pipe it's covering (assuming that all still there). The composition came together quite nicely. My problem is that I was shooting with a Sony, I think before they had SLRs. It was better than a point and shoot, but just barely. I couldn't shoot RAW with it, so I'm limited to high res JPEG. It was good enough for a 16x20 print. I had it matted with a very light faux leather-looking material, but I built the frame myself from a couple of red stained cedar pickets, so the color from the barn just pops front and center.
Very helpful! Do you sharpen differently for displaying on the web and for print? I've heard many theories on this.
Awesome - thank you! Now I‘ve got no more excuses against applying selective sharpening.
You do a great job. Thank you!
I’m curious, what are you recording with? This has got to be the sharpest video I’ve ever watched!
Thank you, Mark. It's really helpful, as I always learn from you. Great video.
Wonderful to hear - thanks!
Another great video as always. I definitely have a few images to try the technique on from Grand Teton. Again, thank you.
Thanks Anthony!
This was helpful, thank you! Can’t wait to play around with it!
Another Out-Dang-Standing video. The Gameboy on the old VHS tape, nice touch.
😁
Fully agree, excellent advice.
Great technique and workflow!
Thank ya my friend!!
Thanks for the video. There's a lot of times I'd only used sharping within masks on localized area rather than globally too, besides the clarity/texture adjustments.
Glad to do it!
Great video. Very informative. Thank you.
So cool!!
Yay...the gameboy and vhs tape are back....now I need to finish watching the video....
😁
Explained a good deal. Not necessarily my F settings causing an issue, but doing some enhancements in post does improve. Thanks!!
Great to hear!
A very useful and informative video. Thanks, learned some new techniques. Just wondering, couldn't one use F stop, like f2.8 or f 5.6 to get detail to fall off into the scene. Also I was wondering what f stop setting you used in the barn scene Mark. Beautiful image btw.
Great photo and editing 👍👍👍.
Thanks so much!
There is a lot of truth in what Mark is saying. It is not always a good idea to have everything in the picture sharp. And this even holds for landscapes.
Thank you Mark for the informative video!
Glad to do it my friend!
Thank you so much, your videos have been extremely helpful as I try to learn lightroom.
This is great to hear - thank you!
Excellent video. Learned something today!
Love it! Thanks for letting me know
your example reminded me of a night sky photo that I recently edited. Milky way shining in the sky behind beautiful mountains, with a mountain/sky reflection in a lake in the FG. Obviously I worked to enhance the milky way since that was the reason for being there. But, I found myself obsessed with the need to bring out more clarity/sharpness in the mountains. And now I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't have. I did leave the mountain significantly darker, so the MW remained the shining star. Thoughts?
Wonderful tutorial and explanation! Thanks...
Glad you enjoyed it!
you are awesome your videos just make me want to get out and snap away THANK YOU!
Love hearing this!
@@MarkDenneyPhoto and its about time you saw the light and came over to Nikon lol 🤣
Excellent video!
Thank ya thank ya!
Well explained thanks
Very welcome!
very useful advice, Mark. But I'm a bit confused: when I photograph a barn, the focus is on the barn and not on the area at my feet. So it starts a bit soft to become sharp at the level of the barn, and then softens gradually thereafter. I would think it's counterproductive to sharpen right from the front. I would do the same, but with the intersection of 2 linear gradients (minus the barn) in a soft to sharp in front of the barn and then sharp to soft starting at the barn. Just in the way we get natural depth of field. What do you think?
I do not sharpen every photo I edit, but I do add some texture.
Thanks, Mark
So how would using just the sharpen slider on your masked area compare to using texture + clarity? As you showed, clarity adds luminance, but so did your texture adjustment - albeit, less than clarity. I. don't think the sharpening slider does that.
I have aE similar shot from Mormon Row. I love that place.
Such a great spot!
Great video
Thanks James!
Good video, thanks
Thanks my friend!
🌟QUESTION: Do sharpen every photo you edit?
my Question is that i often shoot at wrong time due to lack of time as a university student
after the sunrise or at noon but during post processing i crate the drama in the sky using the masking and colour picker is it ok
or if any suggestion for the colours of sky should i leve them neutral (faded ) greyish
Yes I do
yes i use making after sarpening slider i use
Yes, to some degree - but not as well as you did here! Great ideas.
Typically I do, sometimes universal, sometimes selective, depending on the scene and on how much noise I am dealing with.
what monitor u use?
Mark, do you normally do all your sharpening in LR or PS, or do you also use 3rd party apps like Topaz or DXO?
It depends on the photo Mark and I tend to shoot a lot with something in the foreground so if you were shooting that hot you would probably sharpen the roof maybe or parts of it. It just depends on what you're looking for. I noticed a lot of the European photographers go the other way and everything is soft and they go for that kind of mushy look that I don't particularly like but they do where is a little bit like you I like things to Be Pin sharp it will be interesting to see the sharpening you need to add using the Nikon gear compared to FujiFilm and I'm not having a joke about that is that FujiFilm tend to have very sharp files even in there crop sensor.
What aperture was this shot at to avoid infinity focus?
Thank you for the tip, I am tired of photo stacking 😂
Glad to help!
I have not tried this yet but was wondering. After Sharpening the barn , could you have inverted the mask and then put your Linear Gradient tool in? The barn would have been protected from the changes. I guess I should just try it to see what happens.
which LR plugin are you using?
How and when do use denoise in your sharpening process..
I'll usually do it before Sharpening
If your focal point is on the barn, should the gradient you use for sharpening not move from that focal plane as well? Meaning: shouldn’t you use a radial gradient with it in the center, rather than a linear gradient leading towards it?
Thanks, learned a lot from your videos but not this time. The tittle "How to sharpen blurry photos... " is a bit misleading, cause you clearly started with a good sharp photo. Just curious if there is any acceptable technique to sharpen a trully blurry photo that you want to rescue. Thanks
I don’t know why people want sharpness from front to back … we don’t see that way … I like selective sharpness
I don't understand what the Radius does in the Sharpening section.
I’ve seen photographers are afraid to shoot at f/16 or smaller for greater depth of field , because of defraction, so they shoot that wider aperture and focus stack.
Also, it’s my understanding that sharpening should be the last step of your editing process. Hence, I always use the camera raw filter in Photoshop to sharpen my images before saving..
I am lazy person so never felt the need to sharpen any more than then C1 defaults. No selective sharpen, none of that. Maybe if I printed like 40x30 I may do some for that. I shoot GFX.
Same! I only add 1 or 2(of 10) on the sharpen tool in Canon DPP4 if it's going to print, the rest of the time i leave it as what the in camera profile(landscape etc) is set to or in my case the custom assigned to C1 i created
Hi Mark! Just met you in Reykjavik hotel elevator. Have a great trip. I look forward to watching the results.
@dankvitka2018
Thanks!