Well here's my contrasty, straightened image so far:
So now for the final manipulation - Sharpening.
And you've probably been waiting for this one because it's such a darn mystery. And I'm not really qualified to answer this at much length, so I'm going to give you a way to save for Web and a few tips.
The big tip I can give you is to check out a PDF Tutorial from our very own gmitchel: http://www.thelightsright.com …nYourSharpeningSkills.pdf
This is a great tutorial and lists some other great resources.
But for someone new to sharpening I hope the following helps a bit...
Choose Filter... Sharpen... Unsharp Mask. This is a small image that's going to the web, and I'm going to steal a formula from Scott Kelby - Amount 400%, Radius .3 pixels, Threshold 0 levels:
Click on OK and we get:
Ugh! That's way too much! With all the leaves and the small gazebo this image has a LOT of little details, and this generic formula was too much!
We have a couple ways to fix this. One would be to pay attention to the Preview button in the corner. Turn this on and off, comparing the original to the sharpened version. Play with the Percentage, but leave the Radius and Threshold as they are - these are usually pretty good settings for a small Web image. When you've got the percentage set and it looks OK, turn away for a minute or three and read some of the forum. Then come back to it and see if it *still* looks OK. Play some more, and click OK.
When I did this, I ended up with a Percantage of 250% and got this:
The other way to fix this is Fade the Unsharp Mask. I did the original formula at 400% and got the oversharpened image. But then I clicked on Edit... Fade Unsharp Mask and got a new dialog box:
Now I can move the slider over and fade the effects of the sharpening until I am happy. I ended up choosing 58% and got this:
Which one is better? Personally I like the faded one directly above. With the Unsharp 250% it sharpened everything and it looks OK. But the Fade seems to have actually softened things a little bit more, yet seems to be about as sharp. Why? The Fade also adjusted the Radius and Threshold settings, which the 250% image had just the Percentage changed. With a Radius down at .3 you don't have much room to change that, nor with a Threshold of 0. The Fade changed those slightly, too.
Of course this is subjective. You might like the other one, someone else might like neither and want to do it all over again. Sharpening is tough - there are many, many ways to do it. The Scott Kelby book lists 15 or 20 different variations - and not just with plain old Unsharp Mask, either!
So finally the image is done. Except that we have to save it properly.
First, save as TIFF in case you want to come back to it. Simply choose File... Save As... TIFF. For an image like this - with lots of detail - you don't want to use compression as the file will actually become larger. (Long story.) But if you have an image with a LOT of solid color, like a lot of blue sky, you could choose LZW compression to save some disk space. I wouldn't choose ZIP as it's not very standard and other programs might not be able to open it. (Of course PS always will, if that's all you use.)
And finally we save the image to view on the Web. First thing you want to do is convert the color space to sRGB which is generally used for Web stuff. (Actually I don't know if Macs use sRGB, but I know that Windows PCs default to this, so I use sRGB.)
Click on Image... Mode... Convert To Profile and choose sRGB IEC61966-2.1 - otherwise always known as plain old sRGB.
You may notice some color changes when you do this, particularly in the blacks and bright colors, particularly red. Fixing this is another day - actually a whole new methodology, and a bit of work. Sorry. But for now you'll be better off displaying on the web in sRGB. Otherwise I feel that the image ends up slightly duller and darker.
Now choose File... Save For Web. Over on the upper right make sure that you're set for JPEG, Optimized is checked, Progressive is unchecked, ICC Profile is checked, Blur is 0, and Matte is empty.
Now try some of the setting below the JPEG box - Low, Medium, High, etc. When you choose one check the lower left corner - you'll see something like "JPEG 51.91 K 19sec @ 28.8 Kbps." This will give you an idea of the final size of the image and how long it will take a slow dialup user to download.
When you see a file size and a time you think is approprite, double-check the image by clicking on the Optimized tab near the top. Grab the Magnifying Glass and zoom into an area with a distinct line next to a solid color, or some straight line set at an angle. JPG anomalies will be much more pronounced in these areas, and we want to avoid the anomalies. For my image I zoomed in on the gazebo - the trees and leaves will hide anomalies pretty well. Some semi-solid areas - like clouds or rippling water - will also show anomalies well.
Flip between the Original and Optimized tabs to see what the JPG compression is doing to your image. (The distortions and/or blocks of color are JPG anomalies, and they're expecially noticable at Low quality.)
Finally, when you're done click on OK.
Well, I hope you enjoyed all this. At least some of it. Maybe.
My last little "tip" for tonight:
There are many ways to do almost everything in Photoshop. Tonight I went through the simple ways to get your image prepared. Everything I did has a better way, if not 10 better ways. As you go through learning PS you will find slightly better ways to do each step. Learn Them! Do Them! If you took my starting image and did each step a little better then you will have a MUCH better image in the end.
And it will be worth it.
