Sharpening in RAW
 

Is there any merit in sharpening an image in RAW? I usually sharpen after coverting to Tif (CS2 smart sharpen) but someone suggested that it might be better done at the RAW stage what do you do?

Roy. I read somewhere that it is better to sharpen in raw as there is much more detail for it to work on. So thats the way I do it now, before conversion.

I don't sharpen until the image has been resized and sharpening is the last item in my workflow. If you do sharpen in RAW then your RAW conversion software will sharpen the best it can, whereas if CS2 smart sharpen is used afterward and before resize you have the benefit of CS2 smart sharpen algorithm. I believe bicubic resize will soften any image anyway requiring a second dose of sharpening.

I sharpen in raw and also in photocleaner a little bit more as the capture one program that i use will not sharpen it enough .

Like Steven, I leave my sharpening until after everything else. In fact I usually put the shapened image on a separate layer and then I can fade or mask if there are areas that I don't want to sharpen, eg if I shot with a large apreture to throw the background out of focus or added a little blur to soften skin tones in portaits.

CS2 has a "bicubic sharper" algolrithm as well which I think is supposed to avoid this.

I agree, sharpening should be the last action before saving the image with it's own unique name to disk. Incidentally, I always save the original image after converting to TIFF and before I do any work on it, that way you can always go back and have another go!

nirofo.