Does Sony IDC 2 sharpen even when set to 0?

[bakubo]

I have decided that I might as well submit a few photos to Alamy and see if they accept them. I also am not sure if I have the type of photos that they might be interested in.

On the Alamy website they make a point of saying that during the file preparation that no sharpening should be used at any step. For my A700 files I use Sony IDC 2 and I think I recall reading a post somewhere, probably on dpreview, that even when IDC is set to 0 sharpening that it still sharpens. Does anyone know if that is true? Is there a way to turn it off? I suppose I could convert to DNG and use PS CS2/ACR, but that is more trouble. If I submit any Sony A100 files then I may use IDC or may use PS CS2/ACR. Canon 30D files would be converted with PS CS2/ACR.

[Philip]

I'm not sure whether IDC2 sharpens at 0, but you will need to upsize the camera file in order to meet Alamy's file size critera. Photoshop does this really well in Camera Raw, but as IDC2 does not offer this option you'll be opening another image management program anyway!

Philip

[bakubo]

I'm not sure whether IDC2 sharpens at 0, but you will need to upsize the camera file in order to meet Alamy's file size critera.

Yes, I know I need to resize to 48mb. I do that in PS using bicubic smoother.

Photoshop does this really well in Camera Raw, but as IDC2 does not offer this option you'll be opening another image management program anyway!
Philip

Yes, I know that too.

[David Kilpatrick]

It does not sharpen strongly - just 'capture sharpening'. I would say that at 0 it is right for your purpose. Setting minus sharpening appears to blur the image.

David

[bakubo]

Thanks, David. How about for PS/ACR? Should I set sharpening to 0 or leave the default of 25? Is the 25 also just capture sharpening?

[David Kilpatrick]

I do occasionally use values up to 25. It is best to leave it at 0, but I find sometimes a value like 10 will make an improvement without any visible artefacts. 25 is usually just a bit strong. It is only safe at ISO 100 for rescuing slightly soft images.

David