Digital BW, The Print

> My question: do you use the Raw Presharpening tool as well as the
> output sharpening? I remember Bruce Fraser saying that sharpening
> should always be done in two steps.

The process I picked up from a variety of sources is to use *three* steps:

1) "RAW Presharpening" in conjunction with conversion from RAW format. This may do nothing more than attempt to counteract the anti-alias filter in the camera. Some RAW converters, such as Iridient Developer and DxO Optics Pro ("DxO Lens Softness"), have particularly good sharpening routines for this purpose. The developer of Iridient Developer apparently takes the position that this step should be carried out in the RAW development process itself, since noise control and sharpness necessarily play off against each other. Some people claim that many RAW developers include some degree of "pre sharpening" even when sharpening is supposedly turned off. 

2) "Creative sharpening" done in conjunction with adjusting colour, local contrast, balance, etc. This is highly dependent on intent and image content, and often involves the extensive use of masking or "brushes".

3) "Output sharpening" done for a specific output. Nik's output sharpening is very good at this, but I find it much more convenient to have this done "on the fly" when the file/image is actually being printed or otherwise output. Aperture and Lightroom have this capability, while Photoshop (at least through CS6) does not. 

Having become accustomed to this way of thinking, I find Nik's two stage approach a bit frustrating. Their presharpening and output sharpening as sufficiently good that I would like to see what they could do with the "creative" stage, too.   And because I usually prefer to do basic, overall sharpening at the RAW stage, I end up using their RAW Presharpener at the "creative" stage.

Myron