Product Review for the DPA
By Stan Ashbrook, May 22, 2004 “nik Sharpener Pro” by nik multimedia, Inc. I have been aware of various Photoshop Plugins for sharpening images for some time but I thought that I could sharpen images as good or better using Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask filter. I’ve been giving classes on Photoshop for some time now and I thought the Unsharp Mask techniques I had developed were more than adequate. I recently had a chance to evaluate nik multimedia’s “nik Sharpener Pro” and was I wrong. I’ll explain what caused me to change my mind. I went with some fellow photographers to north Florida this past February to photograph the annual Civil War reenactment of the Battle of Olustee. The first morning we had a heavy overcast day which was perfect for photographing the individuals and the families participating in the reenactment because of the soft light. Due to the low light level and the fact that I was handholding my Olympus E20 Digital camera, a lot of the images were soft, probably due to camera movement. I decided to see what nik Sharpener Pro could do with these images. I first opened a photograph of a young girl taken in the reenactors camps and applied the option
for sharpening the image for web viewing using the settings for the Internet. Figure 1 shows the before and figure 2 shows the image after using nik Sharpener Pro, which was much better than I had achieved using Unsharp Mask. I was pleasantly surprised on how well the image was sharpened with so little effort on my part. This image was one of many that I had previously enhanced, resized, and sharpened to use in a digital slide show of the battle. I was so impressed with the results on the young
girl’s photograph that I completely redid 80% of the 224 slides used in the show, sharpening them now with nik Sharpener Pro instead of Unsharp Mask. Because you shouldn’t sharpen an image that was previously sharpened I had to start with each image from scratch, so you know I wouldn’t have gone to this trouble if the results weren’t so dramatic. nik Sharpener Pro uses different settings for sharpening images that will be used on the internet and printed on continuous tone printers, either inkjet, color laser or offset. I opened another of my Olustee images and sharpened it using settings for my inkjet printer and was amazed at the degree of sharpness. In this case you need to view the print to see the amazing results of using nik Sharpener Pro but for this internet article, Figure 3 will give you an idea. When I showed the prints, the viewer’s first response was always, wow that’s really sharp. nik Sharpener Pro has an unique feature that enables it to use the images characteristics to automatically provide sharpening. This means that instead of having to figure out the settings for Amount, Radius and Threshold (which are different for each image) when using Unsharp Mask, you let nik Sharpener Pro do this automatically using your inputs such as method of output, image output size, viewing distance, and the quality of the output device. I don’t have enough room in this product review to adequately describe all of the many features of this amazing product so I encourage you to visit the nik multimedia web site at http://www.nikmultimedia.com/sharpenerpro/usa/entry.php. They offer three versions of nik Sharpener Pro: 1. nik Sharpener Pro Complete Edition provides sharpening for any type of output device, including continuous tone printers, digital photographic printers, inkjet printers, offset and half-tone printers, as well as images viewed on the web. The price for this version is $329.95. 2. nik Sharpener Pro Inkjet Edition provides optimal sharpening for any Inkjet printer. The price for this version is $169.95 3. nik Sharpener Pro Home Edition optimally sharpens images up to 8.5" by 11" for any Inkjet printer. The price for this version is $79.95.
You can also download a free full demo version to try on your images. If you want your outputted images to be sharp without losing their quality I recommend nik Sharpener Pro.