Best sharpening techniques for CS

[Rebel]

Please forgive me if this has been asked a thousand times before, but I just joined this forum and couldn't pull up anything on a search.

I've been told that unsharp mask is a crude way of sharpening images. Is there any other effective technique in Photoshop CS? I would really appreciate it because I find that my 300D is not very sharp out of the box. Its like there is a film of haze of some sort on the pictures that needs a lift.

Thanks in advance!

[chris.bailey]

Try the Post Processing Tutorials Sticky at the top of this forum

[tim]

CS has smart sharpen which works really well for me.

[Jesper]

CS has smart sharpen which works really well for me.You mean CS2 has Smart Sharpen - it's one of the new features of CS2.

[tim]

Oops, slip of the finger, missed the 2.

[J Rabin]

...crude way of sharpening images. ...My 300D is not very sharp...like there is a film of haze of some sort on the pictures that needs a lift.

Crude? Crude! It is THE way to sharpen images - appropriately applied.

Haze can be any no. of things. Maybe poor exposure control resulting in lack of contrast in the image (check your histogram spread). Poor quality outdoor light. Off white balance. Maybe lower quality lens. A dSLR will reveal lens flaws ...crudely. Note when and where it occurs, and share image crops with histogram screen grabs with experienced users.

Frankly, I hate sharpening, and consider it an imposition of my time. Yet, I realize it is ESSENTIAL to Canon dSLR workflow for making prints, slide shows, etc. you'll be proud to display. So, I spent the $99 last year for PhotoKit Sharpener for PSCS, and in one modest purchase ELIMINATED SHARPENING OFF THE TABLE as a workflow issue with regards to brain input, learning, time, and quality. I scan 35mm, and it has sharpening rountines for that. Saved me $000s in time.
Best of Luck. J.

[kevin_c]

I personally use the FocalBlade 'plugin' in CS - much more 'inteligent' than the normal CS USM.


URL if you are interested:

http://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/

[LesE]

I have to second J Rabin's endorsement of Photokit Sharpener. It is THE best choice for Photoshop and includes subtle sharpening techniques that you would spend days trying to work out yourself.

[ejwebb]

I have recently made several prints (one a 13X19) using the auto sharpening functions in Qimage. While i usually steer clear of "auto" image adjustments, the results with Qimage were incredible and there are controls that allow you to adjust the amount of charpening applied. The files were converted from RAW with no upsampling or sharpening applied to the TIFF files and the results were outstanding. I am hooked and will be purchasing Qimage before the 30 day trial expires.

[scottbergerphoto]

I believe that the sharpening in Qimage is sharpening that is designed solely for printing and doesn't change the original file. I use Qimage to print large pictures. I always use USM in PS CS first to get the picture how I like it on the monitor before printing in Qimage.

[ejwebb]

Scott, I don't disagree with you - I just tried Qimage on an unsharpened image to see what it could do and was amazed at the results. So are you saying that you edit the image in PS and sharpen at the original size to what you like and then save the file as a "master" that can then be used in Qimage to generate different sized prints (with Qimage's sharpening applied automatically for final output)? Do you use the USM and other tools in Qimage for final editing (other than cropping) or do you just mainly use it to print? It was your recommendations of the software that prompted me to try it!! thanks.

[chtgrubbs]

I have tried some very convoluted ways of sharpening, but mostly use two relatively simple methods. One is to apply a High Pass filter and the other is to sharpen the luminance channel in Lab Color mode. Sometimes on or the other will look better on a given image.

[mdr]

I use Fred Miranda's IntelliSharpen plugin to PS CS.

[scottbergerphoto]

Scott, I don't disagree with you - I just tried Qimage on an unsharpened image to see what it could do and was amazed at the results. So are you saying that you edit the image in PS and sharpen at the original size to what you like and then save the file as a "master" that can then be used in Qimage to generate different sized prints (with Qimage's sharpening applied automatically for final output)? Do you use the USM and other tools in Qimage for final editing (other than cropping) or do you just mainly use it to print? It was your recommendations of the software that prompted me to try it!! thanks.
I make the picture the best I can to my eyes using USM in PS CS. Then I save the image as a tiff, re-open the image in Qimage and tell it what size to print and it does it's thing. My understanding is that the sharpening used for printing can make a picture look oversharpened on a monitor.