Generating an Edge Mask for Sharpening

[gmitchel]

I promised more info on making custom settings for the TLR Sharpening Toolkit. In particular, I mentioned that this week's "Tip of the Week" on my site would be a walkthough for making an edge mask.

Here is the tip. Actually, it's more like a learning gallery. It's a pretty long tip! ;) Whether you use the TLR Sharpening toolkit or roll your own sharpening process, this "Tip of the Week" should help.

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com

Cheers,

Mitch

[CyberDyneSystems]

Thanks for this Mitch.. this is the "tricky part" ;)

[maderito]

Mitch - quick question. Can you invert the edge mask to perform what you and others call "surface sharpening." If no -- what exactly is surface sharpening? (I think you covered this in a prevous post.)

[gmitchel]

Yep. That's exactly how I recommend people make a surface mask. Use the edge mask for sharpening, just invert it.

Cheers,

Mitch

[JX]

Mitch,

Yor have an excellent website.

Jim

[SWPhotoImaging]

Mitch,

Thank you for an excellent tutorial on edge sharpening. At the end of your tutorial, you mention "a second round of sharpening after color and tone corrections". Would you recommend using the same edge sharpening process for round two, or just a general application of USM?

[gmitchel]

If you use two-rounds of sharpening, I recommend USM with an edge mask for the first round and then highpass filter sharpening for the output sharpening.

My site has a set of scripts that automate the sharpening workflow for Photoshop CS/CS2. It's free to all for the download. You'll find it under Photoshop Tools in the Digital Darkroom section of the site.

Cheers,

Mitch