I noticed that in the latest update to Lightroom, Adobe is now applying a default sharpening amount of 40 to Raw images, instead of the previous 25. It has been 25 since Lightroom first came to market I think. I think in most cases this won’t cause people any issues because in theory you should be treating sharpening on a case-by-case basis anyway and adjusting the sharpening and sharpen masking for each image. It’s just something to be aware of…
My guess is that they have done this because the default 25 setting was less perceptible as photo pixel dimensions get larger. With most cameras now being in the range of 18-50MP it was probably a way to make things look a little better “out of the box”.
Anyway, nothing major to worry about, but something to be aware of since I hadn’t seen it mentioned anywhere else.
Hi Dan – I thought my Canon 80d RAW photos were looking excessively grainy at 500 ISO!!! Turns out it was for the reasons you’ve mentioned above. Why have a default of 40? I don’t think it’s necessary and should be left for the user to define own settings etc. Anyway glad to know I wasn’t the only one to pick up on this!
I think mostly it comes down to most people’s lack of understanding about RAW files. That’s why they have always been applying sharpening of 25 (until now) instead of zero. If they left it at zero, the internet would be full of things saying “RAW sucks compared to JPEG!” “RAW is too soft!” “Why are my RAW photos so soft?”. Generally speaking there is no one-size-fits-all sharpening setting, and a larger amount needs to be applied to a photo with more megapixels. As average megapixels have increased, I think this is why they change it. Sounds like you need to use the masking slider with your 80D images. One of my favourite LR sliders that many people overlook!