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Here we go with another cool Photoshop video tutorial. In this video, we'll look at a different way to sharpen photos. You might be used to using the Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen filters in Photoshop which do a relatively good job. But this time I'll show you a way using the high pass filter. It's just as fast and I personnaly think it' more versatile and a lot less destructive. Enjoy! I invite you to post your High Pass Filter images on Yanik's Photo School's Flickr group. Note: If you don't see the videos, please refresh your browser. Thanks!
I wanted to keep the overall softness of this image while sharpening the subject's face a bit so I erased the sharpening layer everywhere except the face. Since this is a mild sharpening layer I didn't need to be too careful about erasing right around her head etc....:
Once in a blue moon there comes along a Photoshop technique that's so simple yet effective that it makes you gasp, "OMFG! Why didn't anyone tell me about that!" The following 10 techniques every Photoshopper should know:
The Camera or the Photographer? If you did your research and paid good money for your camera (and lenses) and still aren't getting good results, you have to wonder, is it really your camera? Without insult, do you really know what you are doing? Do you have training in photography? Do you understand optics? If not...don't worry. You're not required to be a pro in order to have fun taking pictures. Just don't expect to point and shoot and come away with prints that look like the pros. After all, there's a reason why photographers are paid to take pictures. But that certainly doesn't stop you from improving your skills and catching up to the pros... and the best way to do that is to learn how to maximize the sharpness of your photos. This guide will tell you how.
There are lots of ingredients to making a spectacular photograph, but the most important is for the picture to be in sharp focus. Even the slightest blur takes away from the picture, no matter how good the subject, lighting and color. Photographers have somewhat varying opinions on what constitutes a tack sharp picture, but generally, a tack sharp photograph has good, clean lines. The picture has clear definition, instead of a soft blending of lines, or even downright blurry. There are several things you can do to increase your chances of getting that coveted tack sharp picture. Hand-Held Digital Photography Tips If you're hand-holding your camera, brace your arms against your sides to help steady the camera. If your camera has anti-shake technology such as Vibration Reduction (VR) or Image Stabilization (IS) lens that can be switched on and off, this is the time to have it turned on. You can also lean against a wall or tree or whatever sturdy object that's handy, and help keep yourself and your camera steady. Alternatively, lean or lay your camera or lens on some readily available sturdy object to help steady the camera. Steadying your camera by hooking the strap under your elbow and wrapping the rest around your forearm will also help stabilize the camera and hold it steady in your hand. Getting those tack sharp photos while hand-holding your camera can be difficult, so to increase your chances of getting that perfect shot, use the burst or continuous shooting mode on your camera to take several shots at once. That increases your chances that at least one of the pictures will be in sharp focus. Tripods For Better Focus There's no getting around the fact that it's easier to get a tack sharp photo using a tripod. You just can't hold the camera as steady as a tripod will. And like most things in life, with a tripod you get what you pay for. A cheap tripod will help, but won't hold your camera rock steady like a more expensive tripod will. The moral of the story is to buy the best tripod you can reasonably afford. The more expensive tripods don't come with the head attached. You have to buy it separately, but that means you get to choose what suits you best. To get a sharp photo, buy a quality ballhead that won't let your camera slowly slide to one side. If you're somewhere that carrying a tripod just won't work, beanbags make a nice cushion for cameras in these settings. They cushion your camera, helping to steady it and increase your ability to situate the...
Why use High Pass Sharpening... Photoshop already comes with many sharpening filters built in... why use the high-pass method? Photoshop CS2 and on includes the new Smart Sharpen feature that achieves similar results to the High Pass method, but I feel it lacks the control and visual queues that this method allows. Another great benefit to this method, is that it creates a low-detail sharpening layer that you can turn on and off or adjust the opacity and strength.
[...] TWIP.?? I did a little searching to find out more and found two nice tutorials on the method at Layers Magazine and PhotoshopSupport.com.?? The basics [...]
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Buy. Download. Create. Get Adobe Photoshop now at the Adobe Store. Find Photoshop CS4 tutorials and videos on our Photoshop CS4 Tutorials Page. Try before you buy. Download any Adobe product for a free 30 day trial. Sharpening In Lab Mode A reader pointed out that after enlarging an image, sharpening done directly on the RGB image is not the best one can do. Here is what he says: "I would think that performing the sharpening on the L channel (Lightness) on an image in LAB mode would provide superior results. This will sharpen without color artifacts. This is the same idea as using the K channel in CYMK, but will be much smoother - LAB has a much larger gamut. Convert back to RGB or direct to CYMK when you're done." I agree with him 100%. Compare the edges of the balloons on both images carefully. On the left side I applied Unsharp mask on RGB image directly. On the right, first I converted the image to Lab Color mode (Image/Mode/Lab color) and than selected the Lightness channel in the Channels palette and applied the same Unsharp mask filter. You can spot that on the right the edges are much cleaner and sharper. [tutorial and images � Ivan Raszl of CreativeBits] Photoshop CS4 & Photoshop CS4 Extended - Best Deals From Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended feature a newly refined, tab-based interface in a single, integrated window, with self-adjusting panels arranged in docked groups. Automatically keeping tools well organized and away from your work area means you get greater efficiency, less clutter, and better results, faster than before. Delivering all the features of Adobe Photoshop CS4 software, including the new Adjustments and Masks panels, Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended also provides breakthrough 3D editing and compositing power to paint directly on 3D models, create 3D animations, convert 2D images to 3D objects, and more; richer motion graphics editing; and more powerful and flexible image analysis and tracking. Learn more on our Photoshop CS4 Tutorials Page. To download the free trial, see details on our Photoshop CS4 Free Trial Download Page. Find upgrade options and package deals at the Adobe USA Store. Teachers and students get special pricing at the Adobe Education Store. You can also buy in your country currency and language at the following Adobe International Stores: Adobe United Kingdom | Adobe Germany | Adobe France | Adobe Eastern Europe Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium - Complete CS4 Bundle Adobe Creative Suite 4 De...
Next, we have to select the luminosity values of the image only. Press Control-Alt-1 to select the lightness values only. Next inverse the selection by using the keyboard shortcut Shift+Control+I. And finally, press Control+H to hide the selection.
First of all, you need to open the image that you want to sharpen. File > Open Select the image you want. Then click Open. [Thank You To 'photoshopaholic' for the image in my tutorial.]
Buy. Download. Create. Get Adobe Photoshop now at the Adobe Store. Find Photoshop CS4 tutorials and videos on our Photoshop CS4 Tutorials Page. Try before you buy. Download any Adobe product for a free 30 day trial. How To Sharpen An Image In Photoshop ? Advanced Photoshop Sharpening Techniques Adapted from "Photoshop CS2: Essential Skills" by Mark Galer and Philip Andrews Most if not all digital images require sharpening, even if shot on a state of the art digital megaresolution SLR with pin-sharp focusing. Most cameras or scanners can sharpen as the image is captured but the highest quality sharpening is to be found in the image editing software. Sharpening in Adobe Photoshop CS2 will allow you to select the precise amount of sharpening and the areas of the image that require sharpening most. If sharpening for screen it is very much a case of �what you see is what you get.� For images destined for print however, the monitor preview is just that - a preview. The actual amount of sharpening required for optimum image quality is usually a little more than looks comfortable on screen?especially when using a TFT monitor (flat panel). The best sharpening techniques prioritize certain areas; in this case, sharpening the eyes of a portrait but avoiding the skin texture. The basic concept of sharpening is to send the Unsharp Mask filter or Smart Sharpen filter on a �seek and manipulate� mission. These filters are programmed to make the pixels on the lighter side of any edge it finds lighter still, and the pixels on the darker side of the edge darker. Think of it as a localized contrast control. Too much and people in your images start to look radioactive (they glow), not enough and the viewers of your images start reaching for the reading glasses they don't own. The best sharpening techniques are those that prioritize the important areas for sharpening and leave the smoother areas of the image well alone, e.g. sharpening the eyes of a portrait but avoiding the skin texture. These advanced techniques are essential when sharpening images that have been scanned from film or have excessive noise, neither of which needs accentuating by the Unsharp Mask. So let the project begin. Note: If you have any sharpening options in your capture device it is important to switch them off or set them to minimum or low (if using camera RAW set the sharpening amount to 0). The sharpening features found in most capture devices are often very crude when compared to the following techn...
While debates continue over which of Photoshop's two main sharpening filters is better, "Unsharp Mask" or the new (as of CS2) "Smart Sharpen", one method of sharpening images remains not only highly effective but also much easier to use than either of those sharpening filters, and that's by using Photoshop's High Pass filter.
A new feature of Photoshop CS2 is the Smart Sharpen tool. This tool provides photographers with even more control over their photographs. Unfortunately, this tool is not available in previous versions of Adobe Photoshop, therefore, only users who have upgraded to Photoshop CS2 will be able to benefit from this tutorial. This is the first change in the Filter>Sharpen menu in 14 years! ( Learn about Sharpening Basics by clicking here for part 1 of this series )
This is the second part of My Photos Aren't Sharp. You may have thought there was only one page of possibilities for unsharp photos, but there are more. Environmental Conditions I took a roadtrip with some friends to Las Vegas back in 2002, in February. We traveled through parts of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Seeing this country during the months just before spring is absolutely the way to go. Everything is clear, crisp, but of course, the temperatures are very cool. One of the obstacles in taking a few particular shots, was the wind factor. Regardless of trying to take images handheld in between bursts of wind, I noticed when I got home to review the images, they were not as sharp as I had thought they were. My images looked like I was taking shots from a moving car. Wind is one of nature's elements which can become a pain to deal with if you are not aware of it or think you can manage it on your own. A tripod definitely helps. Rain is another obstacle. Most of you may not have to deal with it as much as those who are photojournalists ("PJs") or who just like to live life on the wild side, but if you do shoot in the rain, you will need to have knowledge of the Shooting Trinity: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and Depth Of Field. Sometimes you may get visible rain drops in your image when you don't want them, and sometimes you may want them when you don't have them in your image. In addition, a nice little rain drop may decide to take a rest right on the front element of your lens, which can distort an image at particular settings. The amount of rain is also something to think about. Be sure to monitor the rain and its behavior when you're shooting in it. It can change drastically, and render an image that would have been just a 15 seconds ago, useless. Wind and rain can also be a great addition to your creativity and expression of images, so they are not necessarily unwelcome. Shoot with nature. Not against it. Quality Of Your Tripod Not all tripods are built the same. Yes, this is true to some extent. However, you can still find a tripod for around $50-$200 that will perform just as well as a $500...and even a $3,000 tripod. Some people don't want to admit this, but hey, it's their money--not mine. In any case, regardless of the money spent on your tripod, make sure the tripod can accept the weight of your camera and lenses on it. Observe if the tripod is having difficulty remaining still when a gust of wind whips up. Depending on your equipmen...
Image sharpness can mean different things to different people. For the purposes of this article, sharpness is the crispness of a given photograph. It's the clarity of detail in a photo, and it's made of resolution and acuteness. Most of the time, you'll want to get the sharpest image out of your camera possible. I say most of the time because there are instances where blur is a good thing. But for now, we'll assume you want a good crisp photo. Sharpening a photo can be done in the post-processing, but it's best to limit the amount of software sharpening because it can yield poor results if abused. The following 6 tips are things you should keep in mind before you release the shutter: 1. Use a Tripod - We humans don't make for a very sturdy platform, so (whenever possible) use a tripod to steady your camera. Some alternatives to the tripod are monopods, beanbags, logs, rocks, and string. Yes string (look up "string tripod"). 2. Shutter Speed - If you're ignoring tip #1, you should at least be using a fast shutter speed. The rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed faster than 1/(focal length) -- so a 200mm focal length should get at least a 1/250 second shutter speed. If you are using a tripod, you'll want to avoid the 1/30 to 1/4 second range unless you lock your mirror up. The mirror slap can actually cause enough vibration to shake the camera a bit. If you can lock your mirror, do it. 3. Aperture - The first part to this one is depth of field, more of which will at least create the appearance of higher sharpness. As you stop down the lens, more of your image will be in focus. The second part to the aperture tip is using the "sweet spot" for that lens. Every lens has an aperture that produces optimal sharpness results. For most, this is somewhere around two or three stops down from the maximum aperture (but do a little research on your particular lens). 4. ISO Speed - Slower ISOs tend to resolve more detail, in addition to producing less noise. ALWAYS use the lowest ISO value possible! You should only bump the ISO when you can't achieve the results you need by altering the shutter speed and aperture. 5. Good Glass - High quality lenses give you the capability to produce high quality photos (technical quality). Buy the best you can afford. When doing your lens research, look for lenses with high resolution and high contrast. If you're out for ultimate sharpness, a high quality prime lens will typically out-perform a high quality zoom. 6. High Contrast...
Step 1: First open any image.
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