This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

Just about every digital image requires sharpening since softness is inevitably introduced during the image digitizing process, and oftentimes with digital photography, images are sharpened badly. This second edition of the definitive book by the late Bruce Fraser teaches readers all they need to know about sharpening, including when to use it, why it's needed, how to use the camera's features, how to recognize an image that needs sharpening, how much to use, what's bad sharpening, and how to fix oversharpening.

Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom, Second Edition is written by Fraser's friend and renowned photographer Jeff Schewe. It adds essential coverage of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw, since many of the key sharpening functions have migrated from Photoshop to those tools since the first edition of the book was published.

The book shows readers how to: recognize the kind of sharpening that each image needs; become acquainted with the full arsenal of sharpening tools built into Photoshop, Lightroom, and Camera Raw; sharpen part of an image selectively; create a complete sharpening workflow that allows sharpening images optimally for different uses; balance the contradictory demands of sharpening and noise reduction; and more.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 15 Ratings

The sharpening bible - 2009-12-31
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book to get an understanding of how to sharpen for print. This is probably not very useful (although it is covered in this book) if you only want to sharpen for web since there are many Photoshop plugins that easily automate the sharpen for web process.

In a nutshell, this book will give you an understanding of what Capture, Creative, and Output sharpening steps are. For each of the 3 steps, the authors provide in-depth coverage of the many different ways to achieve each as well as lot of examples (you can literally see 100% zoom inset pictures all over the book that demonstrates the result of each method). I am writing from a perspective of sharpening for Inkjet Prints so I find this book very useful since print sharpening almost always requires all 3 steps above.

Before reading this book, I found my prints to be sharpened inconsistently. After I read this book, I have much better results and handle on how and when to do Capture, Creative, or Output sharpening to each of my pictures. For those reviewers who are writing about "lack of workflow" in this book, I would suggest that this book gives you all the necessary tools to create your own sharpening workflow, which in a nutshell is Capture Sharpen -> Creative Sharpen -> Output Sharpen. How much to apply in each step is up to you and will vary from picture to picture so there is really no definitive single workflow that works for each photo. You just have to learn the basics and then go with your intuition and practice until you get it. :)

sharp photos sharp book - 2009-11-29
Reviewer Rating:
Amateur photographers like me who process their images after capture will find this book full of useful techniques and methods. The processes are clearly described and the writing is fun and not at all overly technical. A very good book to have if you use Photoshop or Lightroom.

Adam

Image sharpening great book - 2009-11-15
Reviewer Rating:
Great resource for image sharpening for Adobe products Photoshop, Camera Raw, Lightroom. I use it as reference for the printing classes I teach at Humber Collage.

Nice - 2010-01-10
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this for my brother. It came quickly and was exactly what he wanted.

Comprehensive! - 2009-11-20
Reviewer Rating:
The most comprehensive source I've seen on sharpening. As a professional photographer, many aspects of this book will be useful in helping me produce better images. At times, the material seems to be over-the-top technical, but that's probably just me. If I read a passage over 10 times or more, eventually it sinks in. Kudos to Fraser and Schewe for a job well done!

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