I was interested in buying one of the sharpening programs, Nik sharpener in particular and I'm sure I'm missing something. They have a Pro edition and an ink-jet edition my main question is if I buy the ink-jet edition and have a lab make prints does it help or not?

As a hobby I shoot motorcycle and auto races for myself so I have a hard time justifying buying the pro edition. And if the ink-jet edition doesn't help with photos printed at a lab then there's no reason to buy it.

On a typical 3 day race weekend I shoot upwards of 2000 pictures so I'm looking to find something to help with the workflow.

Thanks for any help anyone has to offer.
Bob

Hi Bob,
Most image editing programs have Unsharp Mask Filters built in. Nik Sharpener appears to offer the exact same type of sharpening used in Photoshop USM filter except it claims to help the user make decisions on the 3 different components. Frankly, if your editing software has a USM filter you can learn how to use it quite effectively and easily. There is a huge amount of tutorials and literature to intorduce you to the concept and the technique. Since you shoot a large volume of photos under the same or similar conditions, you can create an action in Photoshop which will allow you to sharpen hundreds or thousands of images all with the click of 1 buttom. Nik Sharpener may require user input and may prevent you from running a batch. You should check it out.
Regards, Murray

I use the sharpening program from the Pixel Genius and it does what I want. However, if I were doing it now I wouldn't buy it. Instead I would use Glenn Mitchel's FREE programs at http://www.thelightsright.com/
.

I tested and really Glenn's work as well as what I bought.

That said, once you decide on a method for processing all these shots,I recommend reading Bruce Frazer's Real world Camera Raw w/ Photoshop CS2. It will teach you how to process all those shots to what ever level you need for your purposes with the least hands on.

I appreciate your comments, I do use unsharp mask but I was being swayed by reviews I've read about he program. I think I may have saved some money:)

Thanks
Bob

'sharpening' can be a bit of a misnomer. there are lots of ways to sharpen or at least to simulate it. here's one. this was done with a 7 band sharpen plugin filter. stroker's lum frequencies is another. the 7 band divides the luminosity into seven zones and allows you to adjust each one, plus the overall strength or amount. i use these two plugins a lot instead of Paint Shop Pro's usm because i just dont like the psp usm filter.

craig