ronfritz
Senior Member
Call me Dr. Anal but when you see photos posted that make you think you need a better camera, the odds are they were properly sharpened before they were posted. Since DRB got me going on doing more post processing, I've been playing around with Photoshop in much of my spare time. Tonight I played around with various sharpening techniques and figured I might as well post some of the results.
From what I've read, it seems there is no magic sharpening bullet that is best for all photos. It is, however, a good idea to convert your image to 16-bit before doing any post processing because it allows the editor to work with about 65,000 colors rather than only 256. Regardless of what you choose to do afterwards, you'll see an immediate benefit if you do your editing in 16-bit mode.
Some approaches to sharpening appear better suited to images with large solid colored areas while others are better for images with well defined edges. I have not read/experimented enough to say much more than that. None take more than a few seconds to apply so its easy to create variations and compare results. Odds are, 90% of the time, basic sharpening will work just fine but when you think you have an exceptional shot, maybe you'll benefit from checking out the alternatives.
The sequence below is intended to illustrate a few of the variations and give anyone who cares a heads up that you might find experimenting worth your while and relatively easy. With PS (not sure about PSE), if you find that you like one approach, you can record the steps as an action and assign it to a keyboard shortcut. It would be wrong to render opinions on which one is best because each has adjustments that can be used to dampen or enhance its effect.
The photos below may all look the same at first glance but there are subtle differences. If you copy them to a folder and then flip back and forth between them its easier to see the difference.
The shots below are all from a the same raw image which was cropped and then sharpened. All the raw sharpening tools were set to zero before opening the file.
The first image is with no sharpening.
The second image is sharpened using what is called a High Pass Filter Sharpening. It increases the contrast at edges rather than using the Unsharp Mask. You create a second layer of the photo, set the blend mode as overlay then goto filters>other>high pass and fiddle with the high pass filter's one and only adjustment until you think you have it right....in this case I settled on 7.8. According to the pundits, this one is good because it sharpens edges more so than the smoother interiors that are sometimes 'overdone' using the Unsharp Mask alone....and it doesn't 'bruise the pixels' (whatever that means). I read about this one in the issue of Shutterbug that arrived in my mailbox today. This process possible in PSE 5.0.
The third image is sharpened using "Lab Color" sharpening. I read about it in Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS book. According to Scott,
it's favored because it avoids the 'halos' associated with over-sharpening using the std Unsharp Mask. Its a little more involved so here's a link to the steps. Unless I'm missing something, PSE doesn't let you switch to Lab Color mode. If so, then this one is out for PSE.
http://www.dphotojournal.com/photoshop-tutorial-lab-color-sharpening/
The fourth image is just plain old Unsharp Mask, which is possible in PSE. In this case, I set it at 200%, Radius = 1 and Threshold = 3
From what I've read, it seems there is no magic sharpening bullet that is best for all photos. It is, however, a good idea to convert your image to 16-bit before doing any post processing because it allows the editor to work with about 65,000 colors rather than only 256. Regardless of what you choose to do afterwards, you'll see an immediate benefit if you do your editing in 16-bit mode.
Some approaches to sharpening appear better suited to images with large solid colored areas while others are better for images with well defined edges. I have not read/experimented enough to say much more than that. None take more than a few seconds to apply so its easy to create variations and compare results. Odds are, 90% of the time, basic sharpening will work just fine but when you think you have an exceptional shot, maybe you'll benefit from checking out the alternatives.
The sequence below is intended to illustrate a few of the variations and give anyone who cares a heads up that you might find experimenting worth your while and relatively easy. With PS (not sure about PSE), if you find that you like one approach, you can record the steps as an action and assign it to a keyboard shortcut. It would be wrong to render opinions on which one is best because each has adjustments that can be used to dampen or enhance its effect.
The photos below may all look the same at first glance but there are subtle differences. If you copy them to a folder and then flip back and forth between them its easier to see the difference.
The shots below are all from a the same raw image which was cropped and then sharpened. All the raw sharpening tools were set to zero before opening the file.
The first image is with no sharpening.
The second image is sharpened using what is called a High Pass Filter Sharpening. It increases the contrast at edges rather than using the Unsharp Mask. You create a second layer of the photo, set the blend mode as overlay then goto filters>other>high pass and fiddle with the high pass filter's one and only adjustment until you think you have it right....in this case I settled on 7.8. According to the pundits, this one is good because it sharpens edges more so than the smoother interiors that are sometimes 'overdone' using the Unsharp Mask alone....and it doesn't 'bruise the pixels' (whatever that means). I read about this one in the issue of Shutterbug that arrived in my mailbox today. This process possible in PSE 5.0.
The third image is sharpened using "Lab Color" sharpening. I read about it in Scott Kelby's Photoshop CS book. According to Scott,
it's favored because it avoids the 'halos' associated with over-sharpening using the std Unsharp Mask. Its a little more involved so here's a link to the steps. Unless I'm missing something, PSE doesn't let you switch to Lab Color mode. If so, then this one is out for PSE.
http://www.dphotojournal.com/photoshop-tutorial-lab-color-sharpening/
The fourth image is just plain old Unsharp Mask, which is possible in PSE. In this case, I set it at 200%, Radius = 1 and Threshold = 3
) Thanks for posting....
I use, in PSE 5, the adj sharpness more than USM and it works for me .... most of the time if I don't get to carried away.... 
..... specially if y'all cause me to have spend my lens money to get it
