To sharpen or not to sharpen?

[fletch]

I use the High Pass filter method and absolutely love it. It's a separate layer and you can adjust the effect in may ways, either in creating the filter with the pixel radius or in the blending mode and opacity of the layer.

The effect I go for is as sharp as it can be without looking sharpened! E.g. no dottyness or halos but really crisp. IMO good sharpening is the differnce between and good photo and a wow photo, bad sharpeing can ruin an image.

[mikebro153]

My camera is a Canon PowerShot A540 which does not allow me very much in camera processing so I use both unsharp mask as well as high pass sharpening.
I would like an explanation regarding unsharp mask and the radius slider.
How should I use this radius slider to maximise my pics?
Thanks to all replies. mike brooker

[Jim915]

Whether I'm printing or posting to the web I've never sharpened an image. When I've achieved proper focus sharpening is unnecessary.

Jim

[mikebro153]

Originally Posted by lputman

I've started to adapt the unsharp mask method.

Hello Lori, Can you explain the 'radius' slider in Unsharp Mask?
Why the difference between a small radius and a much larger number?
Is there an optimum setting?

Thanks for your reply, mike brooker

[Aperture Nine]

Oh no, no optimum setting. You will have to learn it by applying different unsharp mask settings to all kinds of images. You will see a preview in most programs, so you will get feedback instantly.

http://www.scantips.com/simple6.html

The yellow info box explains both radius and threshold. Threshold is also quite important.

[gdanmitchell]

Originally Posted by JodyGall

That is the question! How much do you sharpen your pics. I know its a personal preference, but was just wondering. In my recent browings of other photographers sites/blogs, I've noticed there seems to be ALOT of sharpening going on. The pictures are almost too....what's the word..... dotty. LOL! I don't know. So I was just wondering what people thought of this, and how much you sharpen your own pictures? Thanks!!

There is no one right answer, and I think it is possible to get to the right place by several different paths.

My general approach goes more or less like this:

1. I _may_ sharpen a bit in ACR during RAW conversion with some images. If you want to sharpen edges w/o increasing noise the masking function in ACR is very useful. Most often I do not use this, but in those images where I do I'll sharpen a bit less in the following steps.

2. I bring my converted RAW into PS as a smart layer. Here I apply two layers of sharpening. First is a "smart sharpen" layer that often uses basic settings of 150, 1.0. This varies depending upon the image and the lens I used. With a particularly sharp lens and a detailed image I may lower one or both of those values.

3. Also working on the smart layer I add an Unsharp Mask (USM) later, generally with settings of 50, 1, 1 - though this can also vary with different images.

I save the complete PS file with all layers (sharpening and many other adjustments) as my working master.

What I do next depends on whether I'm printing or creating a jpg.

For a jpg I change the size of the image to something appropriate for web display. I generally apply a subtle USM layer at about 25,1,1.

For a print, I apply an additional print sharpening process using a smart sharpen layer. The settings vary depending upon what paper I'm using, as ink spread varies between different papers - a bit more sharpening may be appropriate with paper on which the ink spreads more. Here I work at 100% magnification and I sharpen to a degree that looks just a bit extreme - "crunchy" is how one person describes it. Because the print will be smaller than the on-screen image and because ink spread will compensate for some of this sharpness, the slight oversharpening is appropriate for a print.

Dan

(Who agrees that over-sharpening of jpgs is a common problem.)

[gdanmitchell]

Originally Posted by mikebro153

Hello Lori, Can you explain the 'radius' slider in Unsharp Mask?
Why the difference between a small radius and a much larger number?
Is there an optimum setting?

Thanks for your reply, mike brooker

With a larger radius the effect will operate on pixels that are more widely separated. With a narrow radius the effect may only operate on adjacent pixels.

In both cases you can get a "halo" effect. With a large radius you'll see a faint but wide halo. With a small radius you'll see (if you look closely) a very narrow but often quite obvious halo.

It is easy to try these settings out on an image and start to see how they work.

Dan

[gdanmitchell]

Originally Posted by Jim915

Whether I'm printing or posting to the web I've never sharpened an image. When I've achieved proper focus sharpening is unnecessary.

Jim

This may be almost correct if you shoot jpgs and rely on in-camera sharpening - in which case you are not actually eschewing sharpening, but instead going with the camera default sharpening.

With RAW files you essentially MUST sharpen in order to see the full detail that is present in the image.

Unless you make only very small images (though I'd argue for it here also) you really need to sharpen for prints as well, if for no other reason than to compensate for the fact that the ink spreads when it hits the paper. The amount of spread varies from paper to paper, believe it or not. I have to sharpen more when I print on Museo Silver Rag than when I print on Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk for this reason.

Dan

[Cheezman]

There is an Elements method that I use for targetted sharpening, particularly with portraits and people. It protects the original pixels with layers and allows you to target edges and eyes, which draws in the attention of the viewer to the appropriate spot on the photo. It goes like this:

In Full Edit:

1. Duplicate background layer
2. Apply High Pass at 20 Pixels
3. Apply Threshold Filter. Push the slider to the left until only the parts/edges/eyes remain visible. This is what will be sharpened.
4. Apply a 4 pixel Gaussian blur.
5. Select Magic Eraser tool (the one with the yellow star thing on it) and click on a part of the photo that shows only white and no detail. The look will instantly change to appear as opaque with washed out color. (I admit I have no idea what this step actually does, but it is in the instructions, so I do it.)
6. Next, duplicate your background layer and move it above the adjustment layer you've created.
7. Go to Layers >> Group with Previous
8. Go to Enhance >> Unsharp Mask and sharpen away. Since your only sharpening a few selected areas, the effect can be subtle, but if you toggle it on and off you can clearly see the effectiveness of sharpening only the eyes and a few other edges and leaving the rest unsharpened.

That's it.

Now, a question: Can anyone tell me the difference between the Unsharp Mask tool and the Adjust Sharpness tool? My understanding is that Adjust sharpness was added to Elements 5 and was considered an improvement, but most people still seem to prefer Unsharp Mask. So far I can't really tell the difference between either.