An Answer To Scot - and perhaps lots of others

Just received this comment from Scott and thought it deserved a more public response than simply posting another comment. Also, when you post a comment, I am unable to capture your email so cannot send a response directly - for better or worse so I normally simply add another comment below yours. Not in this case though.
Hi George,

Enjoying your newly found blog. Learned about it by revisiting your site after seeing your pictures again in B&W magazine. I see that you are a fan of PhotoKit Sharpener too. I love it, but why are you using something different for a capture sharpening? Also why are you RAW processing at one step up in resolution rather than using the native resolution of your capture.

Thanks for any comments.

Scott

Right Scott, and the rest of you. Paraphrasing the questions that Scott asked:

1) Why, when you already use Photokit Sharpener for your output sharpening, don't you use Capture Sharpener from the same company? I found that I got a more agressive sharpen with Smart Sharpen than with Capture Sharpener, without creating sharpening artifacts. Also, Capture sharpener tended to add a graininess to some pictures I didn't like. This was true, whether I used one size up on Camera Raw or not.

2) Why 'uprez' in Camera Raw when in other places you have railed against the virtues of uprezing to produce oversized pictures? For better or worse, once I was selling my photographs it quickly became apparent that people wanted large images and more importantly were prepared to pay a premium for them. It was for this reason that I purchased my 7600 and for an upcoming show am going to have to go 'outside' to have some 3 X 3 foot prints made.

This of course assumed that I had images which would print this large. In some cased I have had to tell clients that I was not comfortable with the quality of larger prints and so no, much as they wanted to shower me with money, I'd have to turn it down. Of course, it also meant trying very hard to reach optimum quality in my larger prints. I have commented earlier that with new raw processing and new sharpening algorithms I have been able to double the size of my prints at the same level of quality - all in a 3 year span. It's simply that I have found that if the original image is sharp throughout (not a given), that I could uprez in Camera Raw by one notch, use smart sharpen a bit more agressively (300, 1.1) and get a nice sharp image at 100% on screen. Further output sharpened for 300 ppi and then printed to 70-80 percent size, this meant a nice size image witth decent border on 13X19 paper. It also meant that I could make larger prints as needed. I recently told my gallery that no, they couldn't have Athabasca Falls # 1 at 3 foot square, but ran a test anyway to be sure, and to my surprise, even though on screen it looked grainy as all getout - in print it was sharp and smooth and didn't reek of oversharpening. I can't even remember now my technique to get the original 12X12 image though I know it was two shots from my 10D stitched. That would have made it about 3000X3000 pixels without 'uprezing'. To make the 3 foot square print, I doubled the size (4X the pixels) with Resample smoother in Photoshop, resharpened it and made the print. Other images have been complete disasters so go figure.

To summarize a long somewhat distracted answer - I chose to output in Camera Raw one size up because I thought the ultimate result allowed larger prints.