How do i know when a photo is sharp enough?

[Victor_Dario]

Hello! Ive upload a picture for pre-screening and ive been told that the picture was a bit soft. So i went back to lightroom and gave it a bit more sharpening and then re uploaded it again for pre-screening.
I got an answer like this, "Still borderline, though would be acceptable for me. Couldn't promise for others."

So my question is, how do i know when the picture is sharp enough and not soft?When im changing sharpening from 80 to 100 i basically dosent see any differents LOL.
Is there a thumb rule or something? Because i dont want to go back to lightroom by guessing its sharp.




And this is the picture that we are talking about.

[NZDN_spotting]

I'm not a screener. That shot looks very borderline to me.

[Victor_Dario]

I'm not a screener. That shot looks very borderline to me.

Okay, but don’t judge me. What does borderline means exactly?
So do i still need to pop up the sharperning

[Ben Long]

Okay, but don’t judge me. What does borderline means exactly?
So do i still need to pop up the sharperning

"Borderline" means you're really pushing the definition of a "sharp" photo. It has the possibility of being rejected, but also accepted, depending on what the screener thinks.

[HernandoJose]

Hello, I'm not a screener first of all, I think you need to change the way you resize the photo. I tried several methods and fron my point of view I obtain the best result as follows:

- I export the image in full resolution from Lightroom.
- I resize the photo in Photoshop using the Resampling option: "Bicubic (smoother gradients)". I used before "Bicubic Sharper (reduction)" and finish here, but now I take one more step.
- I use "Shapner Pro 3: (2) Output Sharpener" from Nik Collection 1.2.11 plugin, the free versión from Google before DxO bought it.

I attached your picture in 1080px from your Pre-screening request thread and resized as explained before so you can see the difference, and the Sharpner Pro 3 settings.

The settings are not always the same depending on each photo and subjective perception.

[Victor_Dario]

Hello, I'm not a screener first of all, I think you need to change the way you resize the photo. I tried several methods and fron my point of view I obtain the best result as follows:

- I export the image in full resolution from Lightroom.
- I resize the photo in Photoshop using the Resampling option: "Bicubic (smoother gradients)". I used before "Bicubic Sharper (reduction)" and finish here, but now I take one more step.
- I use "Shapner Pro 3: (2) Output Sharpener" from Nik Collection 1.2.11 plugin, the free versión from Google before DxO bought it.

I attached your picture in 1080px from your Pre-screening request thread and resized as explained before so you can see the difference, and the Sharpner Pro 3 settings.

The settings are not always the same depending on each photo and subjective perception.

Wow what a huge different it is! I can totally agree with you. Really thanks for the information, but i dont want to spend money on that tho, is there another option? Because sliding the sharpening slider dosent actually help me all the time

[HernandoJose]

I think you can obtain the same result using Lightroom tools:

For the RAW edition:



To export:


I tried it and it works fine for me.