Sharpening photos on exporting to pdf with Publisher

[om5]

First time using Publisher to make a photo book, which I plan to print on a service like Blurb. I tweak my photo book constantly until I am happy with the layout and photo sizes. In the process, Publisher can/will resize/crop the photos. I have been told that the photos need to be sharpened more than usual for them to come out sharp on a printed medium. I do not see sharpening as an option on export--which means I will have to do that manually (after the crop/final size is known).  A post in r/AffinityPublisher subreddit suggested to use a live unsharp filter (using Affinity Photo) on each photo so that the filter is used by Publisher. My question is, are the filters run after Publisher has applied the crop/resize on the photo (to fit the picture frame) or before?  Is this approach the best way to get the photos sharpened for output without having to crop/resize/sharpen them myself?  I may have to rethink my layout/workflow if the photos need to fixed manually. Thanks.

[v_kyr]

9 hours ago, om5 said:

My question is, are the filters run after Publisher has applied the crop/resize on the photo (to fit the picture frame) or before? 

Depends on if the sharpness of an image visually degenerates when performing a crop/resize. Usually you re-apply some sharpening in an app after rescaling (resizing) images.

9 hours ago, om5 said:

Is this approach the best way to get the photos sharpened for output without having to crop/resize/sharpen them myself?

Don't understand that one, as either way you would have to somehow initiate some crop/resize/sharpening process, so you are either way involved.

[thomaso]

10 hours ago, om5 said:

use a live unsharp filter (using Affinity Photo) on each photo so that the filter is used by Publisher. My question is, are the filters run after Publisher has applied the crop/resize on the photo (to fit the picture frame) or before? 

A.) If you assign the filter within APub (via the APhoto persona) then it gets applied to the image in its current state within the APub layout, means to its scaled or cropped version.

B.) Whereas if you apply the filter in APhoto to the initial image then its get placed within APub with this filter applied and thus it may influence the filter result if the image gets scaled within the APub layout.

[Chris26]

15 hours ago, om5 said:

I do not see sharpening as an option on export--which means I will have to do that manually (after the crop/final size is known)

Hallo om5, for what it is worth this is my workflow in your situation, I have sent things to print lots of times and this works for me.

1. Creatively sharpen whatever areas you want for aesthetic appeal or focus of whatever.

2. Save/export the image  as TIFF to the folder where your publisher file is.

3. When needed PLACE the image in Publisher, I never use picture frames.

4. Just before print or Export to PDF or upload to printer, apply Final Overall sharpening to EVERYTHING, no selections no masking no brushing, apply a complete sharpening.  Apply this FROM publisher by using the PHOTO PERSONA only.  Use a live filter if you want, publisher takes that as well.

5. If you can, do a test print on a small portion of the image first with various levels of sharpening, compare this with your screen to give you an idea about how much detail is diminished by the actual ink.  Printing on matte requires a little more sharpening than printing on Gloss or Satin because matte absorbs more ink than gloss and satin.

Another tip for output sharpening:  Its a general idea, not set in stone, but it works:  If you have a more tonal image than Detailed/edges then make the pixel radius much smaller than the strength or amount slider - the latter being more gentle.  If you have an image with more detail than tones or gradations then use a high pixel radius and a lot less strength or amount.  Always dial in at least a 1 % or 2 % threshold level in the third slider, recommendedfor most images especially if you have lots of shadow tones.

The above is just a guide to help you with this output sharpening.  What I have just said is not something I apply to DNG sharpening or the Creative sharpening process which is a creative decision.  You sharpen for print to offset the amount of blurring that comes with the ink being absorbed by the paper.

 

[om5]

Thank you all for the extremely helpful responses.  I am using the picture frames to place all my photos because the functionality is just so awesome in what it allows me to do with the layout--unfortunately, this invariably leads to the images being either cropped or scaled.  My original question is answered in that I can achieve what I need by using the Photo Persona to attach a sharpening filter to the images in Publisher. 

From the responses, other options are:

• Know the layout beforehand so that the images can be scaled/cropped/sharped for placement without requiring picture frames. (This is too much to ask for a non-professional home user like me!)
• Do sharpening on the whole page before export. This will apply the same sharpening to all content (including text, it looks like, which might be a problem) and may be the least amount of work (might be what I go with).

[Return]

39 minutes ago, om5 said:

this invariably leads to the images being either cropped or scaled.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Media/pictureFrames.html

 

[Chris26]

19 hours ago, om5 said:

Do sharpening on the whole page before export. This will apply the same sharpening to all content (including text, it looks like, which might be a problem) and may be the least amount of work (might be what I go with).

No not true, unless your text is included within the actual image that is.  If the image is seperate from the text, then in the layers panel click on image and go to photo persona.  The text is unaffected.

[om5]

4 hours ago, Chris26 said:

No not true, unless your text is included within the actual image that is. 

Good to know. Thanks.

[om5]

Just to close out this topic, I ended up keeping all my text frame layers at the top, and applied the unsharp filter layer below them so that only the photos were sharpened. This appears to do what I expected.