Really Smart Sharpening -- RAW, Post Processing & Printing in photography-on-the.net forums

"It takes a bit of work to get it in."

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Oct 03, 2011 10:35 | #1

I volunteered to make a tutorial using this technique

http://www.earthboundlight.com …search=edge+mask&bool=and

So here it goes. I would give it a few hours after the first post because I'll have to edit and there more than likely be parts 2 and 3. You will also notice I'm not a keyboard short cut person. Only when I have to.

1. Resize your image, do all the colour corrections, etc. Note: I have created an action that incorporates resizing, etc.

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2. Convert to a Smart Object.

3. Open Smart Sharpen and sharpen to taste. I go 300 and .3 for the web as you can feather this back later. For the "Remove" drop down box select Lens Blur.

4. Click the eyeball to turn it off. Any one will do.

5. Select all

6. Copy

7. While holding down the Option key (Alt for PC) click on the Smart Filters mask box.

8. While holding Command (Ctl for PC) and press V on the keyboard

Go to next post for Part 2.

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digital paradise
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"It takes a bit of work to get it in."

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Oct 03, 2011 10:53 | #2

Part 2

9. Find edges

10. This is where the fun begins.

11. Open levels. You have to do it this way. If you open it the adjustments pallet it will create another layer and we don't want that.

12. See the dirty background. I don't want that sharpened so I will eventually move the right slider in the levels dialogue box.

13. Here I exaggerated the background by moving the left slider.

14. I moved the left slider back, the right one in to clean up the background.

15. What I found was that if you move the right slider in first you can play with the middle and left sliders to increase edge sharpening to taste.

17. Deselect. Notice the dirty background. I did this on purpose so you can see the results and I will clean it up later.

Go to next post for Part 3.

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digital paradise
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"It takes a bit of work to get it in."

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Oct 03, 2011 11:08 | #3

Part 3

18. Make sure you are on masks

19. In the masks pallet click on invert.

20. After inverting now the white areas will be sharpened. Again see how dirty the background is.

21. I cleaned it up again. NOTE: There is no step here to clean anything up. Step 20 was just an example of dirty back ground or areas that were going to be unnecessarily sharpened. So ignore slide 20 and the cleaning up statement here. You already did this at steps 14 and 15.

22. Click the eyeball and there you go.

23. Not part of the tutorial but I double click on the arrows and change the mode to Luminosity.

24. Feathering. When you look at this slider it will be all the way to the left for full sharpening. I moved it all the way to the right which eliminated all the sharpening. Feather to taste.

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digital paradise
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Oct 03, 2011 11:12 | #4

Before

After. I did not feather back so there are artifacts but I wanted to show you the difference. Yo do have full control of it.

Well I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I find my images now look sharp and more natural because smooth surfaces are not being sharpened.

Just some examples using this as I have been going over some of my old and new shots.

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troutfisher

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Oct 03, 2011 11:20 | #5

Thank you-much clearer now

Chris

Chris
" Age and treachery will always defeat youth and enthusiasm"

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cagenuts

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Oct 03, 2011 12:36 | #6

Thanks a stack, appreciate the effort.

Good job.

...Ask me anything, I'm an ultracrepidarian.
Hilton
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C A N O N | 6D | Σ f/1.4 | 24-70 f/4 | 70-200 f/2.8 II | Kenko Pro300 DGX 1.4 TC |

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troutfisher

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Oct 03, 2011 13:00 | #7

So far so good,I am not clear in step 21 how you clean it up again,I cant see a levels box in the screen shots after you invert

Chris

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digital paradise
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Oct 03, 2011 13:11 | #8

I was just showing an example of of the dirty background so ignore that. Just use the sliders at steps 14 & 15 to your taste. You will have cleaned it up at that point. I'll make a reference to that in the steps. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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troutfisher

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Oct 03, 2011 13:24 | #9

digital paradise wrote in post #13199325

Many thanks,your tutorial makes it very clear and it certainly gives good results

Chris

Chris
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digital paradise
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Oct 03, 2011 15:54 | #10

Best free one I have used to date. I imagine all these fancy sharpeners like PhotoKit Sharpener (to mention one) use similar but more advanced steps in the background you don't see working.

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isoMorphic

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Oct 05, 2011 01:29 | #11

How about make an action for this with prompts for any needed adjustments to cut down on time?

I'd donate a few bucks via Paypal for someone to invest the time.

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texshooter

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Oct 05, 2011 04:06 as a reply to @ isoMorphic's post | #12

That was a great rundown. I also followed the linked tutorial and it took me forever because there were no screenshots. So all your screen shots really help.

It's going to take a while for me to get a grip on sharpening because there are so many ways to do it.

Use the overlay mode.... no, use the softlight mode
Switch to luminosity .... no, change to LAB channel
Dial down opacity strength... no, increase the threshold
Increase the radius... no, decrease the amount bar
Use high pass... no, use smart sharpen
User find edges filter... no, use emboss
Mask the grainy areas... no use Levels
Desaturate your sharpen mask.. no, create an alpha channel
Do capture sharpening in ACR.. no, do it all in Photoshop
Change the blend mode on the smart filter... wait, didn't I already change it on the adjustment layer?

And on and on it goes........

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digital paradise
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Oct 05, 2011 09:10 | #13

isoMorphic wrote in post #13207078

How about make an action for this with prompts for any needed adjustments to cut down on time?

I'd donate a few bucks via Paypal for someone to invest the time.

I made one but I don't think I can legally sell it. It is someone else's work. Norally I could not do it for the same reason.

Actions are pretty easy. You just hit record and go through all the slides one at one time. When you are done hit stop and then just check the box on the left at any step you want to stop for an adjustment.

Again you do these things after you have create the initial action.

3. This shows what box to check if you want it to stop for an adjustment. Here you see the levels box is activated.

2. To insert a manual stop select the step where you want. I selected apply image. You will notice the stop is already there below it.

1. Shows where to click to access the menu where you can insert the stop.

After the stop you complete step #8 just click on play again to continue the action.

I still have not been able to automate step #8. Rene D. helped me automate step #7 but I still had to insert a manual stop after step #7.

It is called "Apply Image". You can see in that first slide of this post where arrow #2 is pointing. The tutorial shows how to do this manually. Reason being I developed this tutorial before Rene helped me. I also figured it is good to see what each step does before adding automation. People can fine tune this as they like.

If anyone wants to know how to do this I can explain it. It saves one step. Without it you need to put the manual stop after #6 and complete steps 7 & 8 manually. It is not a really big deal because you need to place a manual stop there anyway which is still a pain.

If anyone does not want to create their own action I can give mine away. I have no idea how to do that. I don't even know where they are kept in PS to access them.

I encourage you do to try because it is very easy and you get to learn something.

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D Thompson

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Oct 05, 2011 09:37 | #14

digital paradise wrote in post #13208012

If anyone does not want to create their own action I can give mine away. I have no idea how to do that. I don't even know where they are kept in PS to access them.

Actions are kind of weird because they're stored within PS, so you have to save them which I would recommend doing to any action you have created should something go awry and you have to reinstall PS on another computer. Anyway, it's quite simple. Put the action in a group by itself as only groups can be saved, not an individual action within a group. Highlight the Group, go to the dropdown arrow on the Actions panel, choose Save Actions. Select a folder and save. It will save it with an atn extension.

Nice job on the tut.

Dennis
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digital paradise
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Oct 05, 2011 09:48 | #15

Thanks. I tried before and gave up. I could have done a search on the interwebs but never got around to it. Had no real need so no motivation.

How would I make a post so someone can download it?

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