How do You sharpen an image?

Dlee13 wrote in post #17045019
So after you make your duplicate of the background layer and do all your adjustments such as the HPF. You right click on the duplicate layer and select either merge down or flatten image from the options. This will allow you to easily save the image as a JPEG and not a copy. Does his clear it up for you a bit more?

woohooo .... therein lies the answer

Thanks dlee
I had no idea that you do the right click and go from there ( as I said a way back, I'm relatively new to PSE11)

Now in this context what is the definition of flatten ?
and what is the advantage disadvantage of doing that over doing a merge ?

cheers
Dave

When only dealing with two layers, "Flatten" and "Merge" should do the same thing: you end up with one layer which you can then "Save As" to produce a final output. Merge can be used to combine more than one layer without including all layers, Flatten will combine all layers in the project. In that case, you may want to Merge so you can do more work with multiple layers, although Merged layers will lose the ability to "fine tune" things on the former layers.

Other things to bear in mind:

1) Once you Flatten or Merge, you can no longer re-visit a particular layer to make adjustments, so don't do it until you are happy with the work you have done!

2) When you Flatten, you are "giving up" your original. Because of this, it is strongly advised that your original (if a jpeg) is preserved as a separate file, so you only do a Save As, rather than a simple Save. If your original is a Raw file, well, it should be preserved.

3) Once you have a "finished" project, if you Flatten it, you are done: you can't preserve the layers for future work. That's fine if that satisfies your workflow, you can put out the project for whatever use and be done with it. However, a lot of people have a workflow in which they want to save a project for future work, and so rather than just flattening and saving a project they'll Save As a tiff or psd with all layers intact, producing a large "project file" but one which can be re-opened with the layers intact so they can be edited/adjusted!

Hey, I'd encourage you to take the time to read up on Elements and on working with layers and such! There are excellent books available as well as great online resources!

Davenn wrote in post #17045118
woohooo .... therein lies the answer

Thanks dlee
I had no idea that you do the right click and go from there ( as I said a way back, I'm relatively new to PSE11)

Now in this context what is the definition of flatten ?
and what is the advantage disadvantage of doing that over doing a merge ?

cheers
Dave

No problem Dave, it can definitely get confusing! I only just started to use CS6 for half my processing a few months ago so there is still a lot I don't know myself.

I personally import my files to LR5 as the original RAW format, do my adjustments there then export them as a DNG to CS6 for sharpening and other minor adjustments. Because I do it this way, I always flatten the image and never go back to make changes.

Tonylong gave a great detailed explanation on what a flatten image so no need to repeat that

HI Tony and Dlee

firstly, to you Tony
Thanks for that explanation of merge V's flatten. Learnt a lot reading that
not something I had seen in the videos I have watched to date

Speaking of which, I spend hours watching ( just ask the wife ... haha) various tutorials on youtube both to do with lighting setups as well as LR PSE touchup work. Some videos are good, others a little difficult to follow as they move through the "button" keystrokes so quickly, its sometimes hard to tell what control buttons they were pushing as they moved through the workflow and I end up getting lost

I often wish I could just sit down beside some one skilled in these programs for a few hours and work through some of the more common
touchup workflows. Being able to do hands on adjustments with someone guiding me would help it sink in better

Thanks Dlee
yeah, I also initially import into LR5.5 do any initial corrections for colour, exposure etc, then export to PSE11 for skin work etc.

So I'm learning LR5 at the same time as PE11 ... my poor aged brain isn't as quick on the takeup as these younger lads, so it takes just a little longer to sink into the grey matter haha

I appreciate the help and patience I have been shown on these forums with my queries

regards
Dave

The really simple answer as to what you HAVE to do after you have done adjusting the "sharpening" layer is "NOTHING!" In my personal work flow I do all of my RAW processing in LR. Actually about 95% of the images that I process simply stay in LR. For the other 5% that need processing in PS I send the image off to PS and it is then saved back to LR as a 16 bit .PSD file. I then use LR to produce my final output. Be that a print, direct to my inkjet printer, or a JPEG file specifically tailored to the final use of that JPEG. Because of that I keep all of my layers in my .PSD files so that I can go back to them at any time and have all of my data.

I often add a little HP Sharpening to the PSD as my final step. Especially where I have been combining layers and doing significant cloning. As I will usually have at least two or three layers that is why I use the keyboard short cut to produce a layer that matches the previous processing to use as my "sharpen" layer. This then usually sits at the top of the layer stack.

As I use LR to produce my final product, I do not have to combine all of my layers in order to produce a final output JPEG file. If you are going to do that in PS you can still save a .PSD (or TIFF) as a project file at the full resolution of the camera. You would then resize your image to the size required for your output. This resizing can require you to adjust the sharpening applied to the image. As can how the image is to be presented, printing can often need far more sharpening than display on a computer screen. Once you have resized then you can flatten or otherwise reduce your image to a single layer. Only once you have a single layer can you save as a JPEG file. As you are working in Elements, you will have already have to have converted the image to 8 bit colour depth. If you were working in full Photoshop converting to 8 bit colour is also something you may have to do.

I find that LR is really good at doing all of those preparing the image for output tasks that I have mentioned above. That's why I now use LR for all of those tasks. It also means that I only need keep the RAW files on my computer along with the additional .PSD files needed by about 5% of images. This makes storing them as 16 bit images, with multiple layers much less of a problem.

I keep no JPEG files at all. I just have LR generate them as I need them. Usually using a use specific output preset.

Alan

Hi Alan

Thanks for your additional thoughts appreciated

I do shoot RAW+ it just gives me those quick jpg's for resizing uploading to the net ... facebook, going to the wife's phone, emailing to friends etc where no specific skin touchup editing needs to be done

cheers
Dave