fbpx

What Photographers Need to Know About Sharpening for the Web and Print

sharpening for web
Oversharpened for screen, but it would print quite nicely

Steve McGanity, a reader from England (or do you prefer UK?) asked a question regarding sharpening in response to my article on tips for sharper photos. In the article, I briefly mentioned that photographers need to sharpen photos that will be used on the web differently than photos that will be printed.  Steve wanted to know how to properly sharpen for the web and print, and why they need different sharpening techniques.

Whether Steve knew it or not, he was asking about output sharpening.  Output sharpening is the sharpening that is applied to a photo after it has been determined what medium the photo will be used in.  This happens after the camera itself sharpens the photo (capture sharpening, as with a JPEG) and after any creative sharpening is applied selectively to only certain portions of the photo (such as to make eyes or hair stand out).

Output Sharpening for the Web or Screen

When output sharpening is applied to a photo that will be displayed on the web, you first need to determine the size at which the photo will be viewed.  For example, your 18 megapixel file may be sent to Facebook.  In this case, Facebook will display the image at approximately 1000 pixels on the longest edge.  When you resize the photo, fine detail will get smudged together.  For example, if your photo of a tree showed all of the individual leaves clearly, the leaves at the top of the tree may blend together into just a green color.  When you see the fine details being lost from resizing, you know you need output sharpening.

Only a slight amount of output sharpening is needed for publishing a photo to the web.  Because screens display images in perfect pixels without any bleed between the pixels, the photo will naturally appear sharper on a screen than in print.

Output Sharpening for Print

Output sharpening for print is performed differently.  Unlike the perfectly square pixels of a computer screen, when a printer places a dot of ink on a paper, the color of the ink bleeds slightly into the regions surrounding it because the paper is porous.  Therefore, the photo will appear less sharp.

To combat the lack of sharpness achieved in the printing process, a significantly increased amount of sharpness must be applied to the photo.  I like to sharpen the photo to the point that it looks slightly oversharpened on the screen.  I know that this oversharpened look will go away once the photo hits the paper.

If you enjoy these daily articles, you might like to follow us on our facebook and twitter so you stay connected.

 

6 thoughts on “What Photographers Need to Know About Sharpening for the Web and Print”

  1. Sharpening pictures is one important factor especially when uploaded online so people would see the vividness of the photo.

  2. Good info and article I have often wondered the same thing in relation to which type of sharpening to use. The explain is plain and helpful inline with the sites title it was helpful

  3. Everybody now is into business, and the internet can help you promote your products and services. Having your own website is good, having it connected with the people better, and having it visited by lots of people everyday is best. By this way you can promote your product or services more effectively.

  4. Hands down, Apple’s app store wins by a mile. It’s a huge selection of all sorts of apps vs a rather sad selection of a handful for Zune. Microsoft has plans, especially in the realm of games, but I’m not sure I’d want to bet on the future if this aspect is important to you. The iPod is a much better choice in that case.

  5. When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added”
    checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get three emails with
    the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people from
    that service? Thanks!

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top