Revisited- USM for tiff submissions

Awhile ago, I posted this topic and received just a few responses that tiff files submitted to publishers should never have USM applied. But this week, I've spoken to several editors awaiting my digital files and all said the same thing . . . please apply proper sharpening (USM) to what I think will make the print look good. At 300dpi and sizes of 5" x 7" or so, I'm thinking of 125, 1.0, 1. Any suggestions, using Photoshop Elements (and not a sharpening program) for this size tiff file would be greatly appreciated. I realize that the image ingredients (colors, details) impact the proper sharpening amount but I'm just looking for general guidelines for bird photos.

No one has replied, perhaps because it's a tough question. All the submission guidelines I've seen say no sharpening, so it's not something that comes up for most, I imagine. The figures you mention certainly shouldn't be oversharpening, but they may not be enough. The best thing might be to make some test prints at the same size the publisher will use, because an image won't look the same way on screen as it does on paper. (An inkjet's 360 dpi should be close enough to the publisher's 300 dpi.) In my experience, photos need to look oversharpened on screen to look sharp in a print--I think my first print on my new 2200 was something like 425/1.5/4. It looked dreadfully oversharped on screen, but wonderful on paper. On the other hand, when I follow Tim Gray's starting figures of something like 125/1 - 1.5/4, I get a print that is OK but not really sharp. Of course, a published image won't be behind glass, so you might not want to go quite as far as with a print made to be framed.

Jeff,
There are probably a thousand opinions on how best to apply USM, and I can only share what works for me. For a 300dpi file which will be printed, I apply USM incrementally 2-3 times at the following amounts: (100) (0.8-1) (0-1).

When sending files to a client, technically speaking it would be best not to sharpen them first. The client will usually resize the image, after which USM should be applied. In practice, however, they often don't sharpen the image (or not a good job anyway) and the printed result isn't sharp. There's a great deal of variety in digital skill between clients, and eveyone is on a steep learning curve working with digital files provided by photographers. I often send USM instructions with my digital submissions, depending on the client.
Hope this helps.
cheers,

I know that when I submite images for the newspaper and the magazine I work for that they sharpen an image 500% from what I've been told. Since I do my images for the newspaper in the press room, I don't sharpen at all. I process the images for the magazine at home and do sharpen and I've yet to see one of my printed images for the magazine that looks oversharpened. I've also submitted several photos to agencies that stress no sharpening and I've sharpened the images anyway and to date nobody has complained. I think that as long as the image isn't oversharpened, by and large the agencies and the customers don't know the difference to be honest.