Image Sharpening

One thing most people have problems with is Image Sharpening. The following is for Photoshop but most Graphics programs will be similar.

You need to remember ,that if you are shooting in jpeg, your camera will already have sharpened the image to a certain extent. So don't over do it.


1. Sharpening is the very very last thing you do

2. Make sure your Layers palette is open

3. Duplicate the Background Layer, by clicking and dragging it over the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers window (or press Ctrl +j)

4. Click on the little arrow towards the top of the Layer palette,next to were is says "normal" and select "Overlay". Your picture will look grotty but worry not.

5. On the Menu bar, select FILTER - OTHER - HIGH PASS.

6. A small window will appear. The grey area is your picture (trust me, it is)....Now move the slider until you start to see edges appear, then back it off a tiny amount.

7. That's it. Flatten your image, LAYER - FLATTEN IMAGE

8. The amount of sharpening varies with the size of the image.

9. As with any sharpening, it will not put an out of focus image into focus

Nice HowTo Ian, will have a play with that later. :)

For out of focus (most of my shots) :) I use Focus magic. :)

Your not supposed to admit any of your shots are out of focus

Another way is to use the Unsharp Mask (USM) in PhotoShop (as the last step in processing; I only use it on a copy of the final image):

1. Image > mode > Lab Color
2. On the Channels tab of the Layers palette deselect Lab, a and b
3. Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask

Start with Amount = 50%, radius = 4, threshold = 0 and take it from there.

It is also useful for "enhancing" black and white photos.

Had a play with that last week, but couldn't get any really good results, but perhaps I need to read up on it a bit. :)

I only use UnSharp Mask. would never us any of the sharps except USM in a photo. You need to adjust it though for every photo.
I often go for amount 35 and radius 3.5 but watch for the halo on sky shots. The threshold at the bottom will also soften the photo. I don't use that I use Nose reduction. that needs a lot of playing around with. And if you pic is vivid you can adjust that with the hue and Saturation and move the Saturation slider to about -10 - -20

All sounds very complicated to me I'm afraid. I have photoshop but don't use it I use the free Picasa2, and I only sharpen my images once, I just find the software easy to use:)

Hi can you tell me the differance between this method and using the Filter and "sharpen" in Photoshop, is one method better than the other or will both do the same job.

I had a play and could do what you said and learned something new.

Sitereh

P.S. not too complicated an answer please..lol

hi sitereh,with the unsharp mask etc in PS its a suck it and see situation with very little control.The High Pass filter method allows you to make fully controlable selective sharpening i.e. the mouth and eyes in a portrait shot whilst leaving the skin tones etc alone.If you would like to delve deeper into high pass filtering, a good place to start is http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tuto...harpening.html

Thank you for that. I never gave the tone a thought and sometimes it does mess the photos up and I dont use it.