05 Sample image 2
This time I’m using the same RAW file in both programs rather than a TIFF. This means the image does look slightly different, but I wanted to find out if the results changed in any way.
06 DxO RAW results
The outcome is, in fact, the same. You can see from the comparison images that the Auto option, far left, is quite soft, the Bicubic option, centre, is softer again, and the Bicubic sharper option, right, is much sharper than both.
07 Capture One RAW results
Again, working from a RAW file has produced the same result in Capture One. I still can’t tell the difference between the unsharpened version on the left and the sharpened version on the right.
08 Conclusions
You can’t just use the default export options in your software and assume you’re going to get a perfect result. Aperture, Lightroom, DxO Optics Pro and Capture One Pro can all export resized, web-ready images, but you need to pay attention to the export settings if you want them to do your pictures justice.
Aperture doesn’t give you a choice. You’re better off using external software to do your resizing and sharpening. Lightroom does offer sharpening options, but the effect is modest and, again, external software like Perfect Resize will do a much better job.
DxO Optics Pro can export super-sharp web-ready images, but you need to use the Bicubic sharper interpolation method, not the default Auto setting – it makes a huge difference. Capture One Pro, however, seems to export super-sharp web images whether or not you use the sharpening option in your process recipe.
Resampling and sharpening is a tricky business, and this just goes to show that you can’t assume your software’s default settings are going to give you the best results.
