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Sharpening not being applied when image is exported
  • SiavashSiavash
    Ok, so first of all, great thing starting an Aperture forum! 

    I have a really nagging issue that I can't seem to get fixed. Whenever I export an image from Aperture, the sharpening edits Ive made is ignored. All other editing is applied, except sharpening. 

    What am I doing wrong? 
  • rlfsosorlfsoso
    Hi,

    not 100% sure, but I thought Aperture didn't offer output-sharpening? have you looked into your export-settings?
    Personally I use BorderFX which offers output-sharoeniung (though frames and watermark/text) is more important to me
    Rolf
  • thomasthomas
    Are you exporting an image at full size or exporting it scaled down. As mentioned already, if you're scaling it down you will notice a degree in softening because Aperture doesn't do output sharpening. However, if you're outputting full size images and there's no sharpening applied, then something is wrong.
  • SiavashSiavash
    Thank you for you responses. 

    This is ridiculous. So Aperture does not support output-sharpening, which means that it's kind of pointless to do any type of sharpening in Aperture at all?

    It doesn't matter if I export an image in full size or scaled down; none of my sharpening edits are applied. 

    I have tried to export to:
    - JPEG 50% = no sharpening applied on the exported file
    - JPEG Original Size = no sharpening applied on the exported file

    So, rlfsoso, you are saying that this is normal behavior when exporting images from Aperture? 
    And, Thomas, you are saying that the full size exports should have sharpening applied?

    What I expect from an image editing software is that ALL of the edits that are made in that program should of course be applied when the image is exported. That makes sense to me. 
  • thomasthomas
    I think you misunderstood what i was saying. It's not that sharpening isn't applied, it's just that the act of scaling it down softens the image again due to anti-aliasing. This happens in every piece of software. Some is better than others. some other software has a function called output sharpening which sharpens the image again after scaling to counteract the antialiasing softening.
  • SiavashSiavash
    Ok, so that means that if I export an image in full size, (JPEG Original size) the sharpening should look exactly the same as when I look at the image in Aperture itself?
  • thomasthomas
    Yep !

    Have a look at this and see if it helps:


    I usually export half res and then scale down to the web size with a photoshop acton which scales the image and then sharpens it.
  • SiavashSiavash
    Ok, but that doesn't work for me; if I export the image in full size, it does in fact not have the same added sharpening compared to the original in Aperture. The sharpening, or at least most of it, gets lost in the process of exporting the image. 
  • thomasthomas
    Ok, well then there's something wrong there. That shouldn't happen. What system are you running on ?
  • SiavashSiavash
    10.7.2, latest version of Aperture, on an iMac 21.5" 2011. 
  • thomasthomas
    Mmm, not sure. There's no reason why it shouldn't work. The only think I can suggest is try deleting your preferences. Maybe try posting on the Apple forums too. I've never heard of it doing that before. I expect it might be a graphics card issue, but it's an odd problem
  • SiavashSiavash
    Here is to illustrate the issue, I took an image in Aperture and increased the sharpening fully. First image is a screen shot from Aperture, with the sharpen tool increased to max. The second image is that same image (Version) exported in original size, its a screen shot of it. 


  • SiavashSiavash
    I got it. When looking at an image in Aperture in the last zoomed out level (as I most of the time do) Aperture shows an over exaggerated view of the sharpening, why I don't know. 

    However, if I zoom 100% on the exported image and the image in Aperture and look at them side by side there is no actual difference.

    Actually, this seems to be the case even with scaled down versions. If I export a version in 50% size, and zoom in the same image in Aperture to 50%, there is barely any difference between them. 

    Phew. Glad to have this sorted out. Allthough, I can't understand why Aperture exaggerates the sharpening in certain views. 
  • marchymanmarchyman
    Interesting.  I know others have complained about sharpening in the past.  Someone usually eventually posts side-by-side screen shots of 100% zoomed imaged to show that the export is the same as what was seen in aperture.   You are the first I've read to note that what you see in aperture may be different according to the zoom level.

    Thanks for the update.
  • thomasthomas
    When Aperture 3 first came out there was a desperate problem with over sharpening and fringing  on the display to the point where you couldn't use it. 

    You can read about it here:


    Still, most software you need to judge sharpening at 1:1. In Lightroom it's not displayed properly when zoomed out in the develop module and lots of other things aren't displayed properly when not zoomed in either. (Although they seem to have fixed that in 4)

    DXO opctics pro is the same. But I've never had the problem you've described though. Luckily. I wonder is it graphics card dependent.
  • SiavashSiavash
    Thanks for the info Thomas. 

    It is quite annoying actually, since I do most of my editing in fullscreen at the lowest zoom level. From here on now I have to zoom in from time to time to see how the edits really look. 

    Perhaps it is graphics card dependent. I guess we'll never know. 
  • gdwsrgdwsr
    I think all editing software will do this.  If you think about it, it is impossible for the computer screen to show all the 100% pixels when zoomed out, e.g. 50% so the program has to combine (average) some of the pixels.  Same thing happens when saving the image at a smaller scale.  Somewhere I read the in any editor always do sharpening/blurring at 100%.  If reducing the image output size there are different algorithms that should be used depending whether you are enlarging or reducing.  I think Bi-cubic is best for scaling down.  Hope that helps.
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