Camera Raw sharpening

BY DEFAULT Camera Raw adds a small amount of sharpening to all raw files. Although the default setting will say Amount 25, Radius 1.0 and Detail 25, the actual

amount of sharpening that’s applied under the hood will vary from camera to camera. Essentially, the default sharpening settings should appear the same regardless of the inherent differences in the actual capture sharpness. The 25 Amount setting is rather conservative and can be increased to produce a sharper look. The Radius setting should be reduced for fine- detail subjects and raised for wide edge detail photos such as portraits. The Detail slider acts as a halo suppressor at settings below 25 and as a high frequency concentrator for values above that, essentially applying more sharpening to fine textured detail areas. With low- ISO captures you can often safely increase Detail without enhancing noise. By increasing the Masking slider setting you can shield flatter tone areas such as skin tones from being sharpened. In the insect image example raising the Masking setting prevented noise from the sharpening from affecting the soft focus regions.