Quote Originally Posted by Medley View Post
I agree, but respectfully, only to a point. Sharpening contains a physical element- the size of the sharpening halo, which is normally controlled by the "radius" setting.

Reducing an image's size invokes an algorithm that removes pixels from the image, and alters the values of adjacent pixels to compensate for the loss. Software is very much a determining factor in how this is done.

But without exception (that I am aware of) reducing an image also reduces the width of the sharpening halos. Sometimes, that isn't a bad thing. If you're reducing an image to reduce the resolution, but print at the same size, then you would WANT to reduce the width of the sharpening halos proportionally. But if you're changing the image's size in order to print it at a certain dimension, then one should be cognizant that downscaling the image will reduce the size of the sharpening halos, and upscaling the image will increase the size of the sharpening halos.

There are a couple of different ways to compensate for that. The software could do it with an auto-sharpen feature. That's something of a cookie-cutter approach, but it's OK if your changing the size of several images by the same amount. My preferred method is to resize before doing ANY sharpening, and then resize only to match the native resolution of the printer, or some harmonic thereof. That allows me the most creative control of the sharpening process, and ensures that the printer doesn't distort what I've done.

JMO, and I freely admit to being retentive about my sharpening.

- Joe U.
It must be the software I'm using as I only go to PhotoShop if I have to do more than crop, color balance, and/or resize for web posting. I use Thumbs Plus, it's up to version 8 and I started using at version 3.

When I resize smaller with Thumbs Plus the image always looks sharper, the same with PhotoShop 5. But then again I don't try to save fuzzy photos of mine, I only allow myself one sharping pass if that does not fix the problem it's not saved or used.