STICKY:  Sharpening Tips & Tricks, Tutorials, and FAQ

René Damkot wrote in post #5246542
Lightroom and ACR 4 can sorta make an "on the fly" mask.

LR sharpening

Yes that is probably great for default capture sharpening. If you having to work at high ISO though you may want to manualy paint the mask for more control. I tend to find I manualy paint luminance NR masks if I use NR.

perryge wrote in post #5075416
In the second image, we're ready for output. Here I sharpened using the high-pass method. I duplicated the layer, and set it to overlay. I then ran a high-pass filter and tweaked the slider until I could see the details of the image in the grey filter, but stopped before any halos or much colour was visible. This gave me a high-pass filter of 1 pixel. And we're done sharpening at this point.

How do I do this in photoshop?

mismis wrote in post #5287811
How do I do this in photoshop?

Duplicate layer, set blending mode to overlay, and then filters->other->high pass.

perryge wrote in post #5288969
Duplicate layer, set blending mode to overlay, and then filters->other->high pass.

Right on, and for those that use Elements, the commands are the same.

Additional comments:

- <Ctrl-J> will duplicate the layer.

- I believe that the sharpening required for monitor displays isn't as high as that required for printing - and I believe it depends on the print size too.

- I use 100% zoom to judge sharpening (<Ctrl +> four times).

- I sometimes make several duplicate layers and set each to a different sharpening radius for comparison - turning off the layers with the radius I am not judging.

- And I RENAME each sharpening layer - for example: hps 4.0

Glenn NK wrote in post #5290367
(<Ctrl +> four times).

Depends: Only when starting at 16%

The keystroke you want is Cmd Opt 0
(probably Ctrl Alt 0 on PC)

Cmd 0 takes you to "fit to screen"

Wow, Perry thanks for starting this thread. For some reason the way you explained it just clicked.

Thanks perryge, Your techniques worked wonders. Just to clarify, this is what im doing when I open my raw images straight into photoshop CS 3

1) Select entire image and do an USM at low %, high radius
2) Select particular parts of an image I want sharpened using magic wand, do USM at high %, low radius
3) Using the same selection, layer via copy
4) Select overlay for new copy, run highpass filter through new copy
5) merge layers

Is this right?

mismis wrote in post #5305247
Thanks perryge, Your techniques worked wonders. Just to clarify, this is what im doing when I open my raw images straight into photoshop CS 3

1) Select entire image and do an USM at low %, high radius
2) Select particular parts of an image I want sharpened using magic wand, do USM at high %, low radius
3) Using the same selection, layer via copy
4) Select overlay for new copy, run highpass filter through new copy
5) merge layers

Is this right?

Yup. You're skipping the capture sharpening step in this workflow though. What you're doing is first, defogging/local contrast enhancement, then selective sharpening (both are creative sharpening techniques), then the high pass sharpen. I do exactly the same, except some capture sharpening before step 1, something like 30%, 0.5 radius.

But bear in mind that the way I do it is not the 'right' or 'best' way, especially in different situations. The whole point of this thread is to share the wonderful and diverse sharpening techniques that different people have .

I've already learned a hell of a lot from this thread, so credit goes to those who have contributed their knowledge.

mismis, wanna show us some before and afters?

Thanks for starting this thread! I am loving all the tips and pointers here. I have a question for any professional photogs out there, or anyone who shoots lots of images per session for that matter. Does anyone have advice on a general sharpening action that can be easily automated/batched when you need to quickly process tons of images and put them out on the web for client proofing?

A lot of the tips I'm reading here are excellent for that part of my workflow where I have finally decided which images I want to print and go back to do final processing before having them printed. But my problem is that I need to take 100-200 images at a time from a client's studio session, process them, and then get them on my proofing web site as quickly as possible for the client to view them. Having to apply the tips in this thread on every individual image would take forever!

Does anyone have a sharpening workflow or action they would like to share that they use to batch process images for web proofing? I shoot with a Canon 40D, use Lightroom to convert RAW to PSD, and then PS CS3 to do post processing. I have tried setting up actions within PS to automate my process as much as possible, but I fear I may be using settings that are not ideal for web proofing. I need my images to look good on the web for the client, but I cannot spend hours/days processing each image individually.

I currently am not applying any sharpening to my images before processing them for web proofing. I've run into problems in the past where automating a douple-pass sharpening tool (capture sharpening and output sharpening) has left my images with too many artifacts and scragglies. That doesn't look good for the client. All i do for web processing right now is take the PSD image, apply a light Provia effect to bump up color/saturation, convert to profile sRGB, and then save as a JPEG with sRGP profile at 5 (Medium) quality.

My current web proofing method is very quick, but I don't think it is providing the best quality image. Has anyone here batch automated your sharpening actions for both capture and output sharpening? Would you be willing to share your settings? Thank you!

I use a slightly modified Manyk SRS action for resizing / sharpening for web.

Also, I never go below jpg quality 8, unless for posting on POTN .
5 is way too low IMO.

Rene, yeah I think 5 is too low, as well. However, it's a balancing act between providing the client with high quality proofs, but also using file sizes small enough that the client isn't waiting too long to view each image. If each image took 20-30 seconds to load, and there are 150 proofs for the client to view, I'm going to be trying my client's patience.

The problem is that any JPEG quality above 8 is producing files in the 400KB - 600KB range. I'm trying to keep the file size below 200KB if I can help it.

As far as the sharpening action you use for the web, have you been able to automate it? Are you batch processing many photos at once applying a standard sharpening setting to them all? I understand that every image will require its own sharpening settings when your preparing it for print, but do you find your general settings in your sharpening action are sufficient and acceptable for most photos?

I run Manyk SRS in the same action I use to watermark the images.
All default settings, mostly the same as used in the original action, but changed the size too 800px, and backed off the sharpening somewhat.

Gallery here: All images got the same (capture) sharpening in LR, all got batched thru Manyk SRS.

I find it acceptable. Sure, it could be better, but I don't want to do each file seperately.

There's some great info here. I tried the local contrast enhancement and it really worked wonders on the image I tried it on. Is this something that many of you use on all of your images? And in what step in the workflow is best to use it? Such as before levels adjustments or perhaps just before the final "real" sharpening?

RacingMoose wrote in post #5345156
There's some great info here. I tried the local contrast enhancement and it really worked wonders on the image I tried it on. Is this something that many of you use on all of your images? And in what step in the workflow is best to use it? Such as before levels adjustments or perhaps just before the final "real" sharpening?

Before levels, it can clip your highlights and shadows if you're not careful and don't have room to maneuver in. I do it on almost every image.

perryge wrote in post #5345198
Before levels, it can clip your highlights and shadows if you're not careful and don't have room to maneuver in. I do it on almost every image.

Re the clipping highlights and shadows, this is why it is such an advantage to use masked layers for sharpening.

The mask obviously limits the sharpening to the detail that needs it without adding to the noise in flat areas of tone.

The other point is the layer blend settings stop you over applying the sharpening and clipping the dynamic range extremes.

This is all done by the actions I linked earlier. It is much less tedious to use actions, you can always selectively set various action lines to let you make changes to menu items invoked so you can make manual changes to some settings as the action progresses.