What Does In-Camera JPEG Sharpening Mean On A Fuji X-T2?

Test Target; From RAW file, processed as I would normally (click to enlarge)
Camera settings outlined below

Many of you will choose to set your camera to photograph using the RAW file setting.  As we know, RAW files are 14-bit and give the photographer much more versatility than photographing with an 8-bit JPEG setting.  I won't go into RAW versus JPEG here as it has been done to death, however, one of the wonderful aspects of using Fuji X-cameras are the in-camera film simulations found only by photographing using the JPEG setting. (Adobe tries to replicate these in Camera Raw and Lightroom, but they aren't quite the same)  There are a considerable number of Fuji photographers who now use JPEG as their standard setting as they love what Fuji has provided in the way of giving the photographer numerous choices in color, contrast, saturation, color v. black and white and other subjective image qualities.  Some of you, as do I, set your cameras for RAW + JPEG, thereby giving us the best of both worlds at the cost of a little memory card and hard drive space. The other benefit is the ability to view ones images on the camera's LCD for sharpness at 100% magnification.  Can't do that with RAW only.  The magnification is much lower.  That is the subject of this post—in-camera JPEG sharpening.

There are many in-camera JPEG settings giving us excellent versatility in tailoring our images to our needs.  One of those in-camera settings for JPEGs is sharpening.  The sharpening controls on the Fuji X-T2 (and X-Pro 2) range from -4 to +4, a total of 9 sharpening settings.  But which to use?  Some photographers may prefer to set their camera for -4 and do all of their sharpening later in their editing software.  The downside of that is the camera generates a JPEG image for the photographer to view on the LCD and at -4 your images will look soft and it will be difficult to judge correct focus and overall sharpness.  (Even knowing this happens, I've been fooled into thinking my lens won't focus or my images are slightly out of focus!  Not a good feeling. You go through your mental checklist asking yourself "what's wrong?")  Others may want to set the in-camera sharpening level at another setting so they can use JPEGs right out of the camera. 

I wanted to see what in-camera sharpening specifically means in my Fuji X-T2 so I went about conducting some tests to find out.  Again, the better you know your gear, the better off you are.

I made a few images with my camera so I could see exactly what the effect was when the sharpening setting was set at every setting between -4 and +4.  Here is how I constructed the test.

X-T2 with 50-140mm f/2.8 lens on a tripod, image stabilization Off.
ISO 200 (base and best for image quality)
Set for RAW + JPEG
Aperture Priority F/8 (excellent image quality at that aperture on the 50-140)
Shutter speed 1/140th sec.
Film Simulation set to "Ns"
Auto white balance
Dynamic Range Auto
Highlight Tone 0
Shadow Tone 0
Color 0
Sharpness varied with each exposure from -4 to +4
Noise Reduction 0
Color Space Adobe RGB
Grain Effect  Off

This is an image made at ISO 200 with each setting of in-camera sharpening.  You can get a good idea how the in-camera JPEG settings affect apparent sharpness, produces sharpening artifacts and influences overall image quality so you can decide if and how much of it you may want to use.  Click to enlarge as it makes the differences much easier to see.  Then look at the side-by-side comparisons below.

-4 sharpness setting
1028 x 685 pixel crop from the 6000 x 4000 full image (click to enlarge)

-3 sharpness setting

-2 sharpness setting

-1 sharpness setting

0 sharpness setting

+! sharpness setting

+2 sharpness setting

+3 sharpness setting

+4 sharpness setting

So you can get a better idea of the differences between sharpening settings, here are some side-by-side comparisons of the softest image with JPEG sharpening turned down as far as it can (-4) to the various other settings. Click to enlarge each image.  The differences are very apparent.

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image -3

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image -2

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image -1

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image 0

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image +!

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image +2

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image +#

Left image -4 (no sharpening applied); right image +4

You can easily see the differences in the application of in-camera JPEG sharpening. Personally, I find +1 to be a nice compromise and somewhat replicate what I apply as input sharpening in Lightroom.  Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE January 14, 2016:  Going back and looking at the RAW image of this file and comparing it directly to the -4 sharpening JPEG image, -4 being the least amount of sharpening that can be applied to a JPEG image, it is my opinion that Fuji is applying a minor amount of sharpening even at the -4 setting.  There seems to be no setting available that applies no sharpening whatsoever to JPEG files.  That being said, the amount is very minor and does not negatively impact the image file quality that I can detect.  I just thought this discovery was important and should be passed on.

Hope you found this little exercise valuable.  I did.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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