Am I the only one who thinks over-sharpening a photo makes it look worse?

I keep seeing people online saying you gotta crank the sharpness slider all the way to fix a blurry picture. Last week I was messing with a photo I took at my cousin's wedding in Dayton, it was a little soft from the dim lighting in the church. I tried pushing sharpness to 80% like everyone recommends and it just looked crunchy and fake, like someone drew lines around everything. Three years ago I did the same thing with a shot of my dog running in the park and ruined it. I honestly think backing off the sharpness and using a little contrast does more for blur than maxing out that slider. My buddy swears by the heavy sharpening but his pics always look weird to me. Has anyone else found that less is more with sharpening tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.faith24d agoMost Upvoted

Jeez, saving over the original file? That's a nightmare. I can't believe she lost the original cake photo like that, that would drive me up a wall. I always save a copy before I start messing with sliders exactly because of stuff like that. You can't undo digital damage once it's baked into the file, it's like trying to unbake a cake. Hope she found a way to live with the sprinkle outlines or learned her lesson about saving backups.

the_mila24d ago

Yeah the "crunchy and fake" thing you mentioned is exactly what happened to my friend Sarah. She got a new camera for her birthday and went ham with the sharpening tool on a photo of her niece's birthday party, the cake ended up looking like it had little white outlines around every sprinkle. I swear she spent an hour trying to undo it but the damage was already saved over the original. She still brings it up every time someone mentions editing photos.