Free Sharpening Scripts for PhotoShop CS/CS2

I have posted a free set of three JavaScripts written for Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS2. The scripts will run on both the Windows and Mac platforms.

The scripts are based on a three-pass sharpening philosophy, although they can also be used for single-pass or two-pass sharpening.

I engineered the scripts to include the best features of commercial sharpening tools, like Focal Blade and Photokit Sharpener. Features include:

• Sharpen with Smart Filter or USM sharpening.
• Sharpen edges and surfaces separately (or either alone).
• Sharpen light and dark pixels separately.
• Generate masks using luminosity or enhanced color boundaries.
• Brush in creative sharpening/blurring.
• Haze Reduction.
• Blend If settings protect highlights and shadows.
• Select from presets or take control over settings.
• All sharpening is done non-destructively using layers.
• User-configured default settings
• Optionally suppress the UI and run the scripts in batch mode
without any user intervention.

The .ZIP file also includes a 24-page, full color .PDF manual.

http://www.thelightsri​ghtstudio.com …onalSharpeningT​oolkit.htm

The download is 3.7 MB. My site has limited bandwith, so please try again if you experience connection delays. This is likely to be a popular download.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Mitch

---------------
http://thelightsright.​com
http://thelightsrights​tudio.com
http://groups.yahoo.co​m/group/TheLightsRight​/


Edited by Scottes 10/21/05 to correct link

I've just been experimenting with this...

Oh man!
Mitch your a twisted genius!

I can not belive the amount of loving time and effort that has to have gone into this project.. and your giving it away free!

this is the most serious "script" I have ever seen in action.. very complex.. and the results?
Fantastic!

Thanks Mitch! Awesome piece of work.

I am going to give it a try!!!
THANKS for all your HARD WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the Kind Comments

It is nice that you do appreciate just how much time went into this project.

It is not just the code per se that took time. The settings for different combinations of digital capture devices and mask widths took a long time for the capture sharpener. Same with the various combinations of output devices and output resolution; they also took a long time.

The manual also took a few evenings.

I figure, between the coding and then determining the initial values for the various sharpeners and then composing the user manual, I've given the digital photography community about 150 hours of my time on this project.

It is nice when people do appreciate how much thought and effort went into these scripts.

It is important to recognize I did not do all of the work alone. I had lots of suggestions, lots of sample images forwarded to me, and lots of folks alpha testing and beta testing these scripts.

It's rather like watching a performer on stage. Even a solo performance requires lots of help behind the scenes. I'm grateful for all the help I received on this project.

I hope you find the scripts useful in your digital photography!

Cheers,

Mitch

Mitch,

Thanks for your work.

Will it work using Elements 3 ?

I wonder if I should just give it a try

Robert

I will download this and try when I have setup my new photo pc.

Thanks for sharing.

rgravel wrote:
Mitch,

Thanks for your work.

Will it work using Elements 3 ?

I wonder if I should just give it a try

Robert

Unfortunately, Elements 3 does not support scripting. The scripts also use other features unavailable with Elements 3.

The scripts are designed to run with Photoshop CS/CS2 only. Sorry.

Cheers,

Mitch

I've used this before, it's good, but the problem was you need a reasonable amount of knowledge or experience to use it. Hopefully the documentation will help with this, I read it last time and it didn't really help me much, personally. Thanks for the effort Mitch

Hi Mitch,

I really appreciate all of your effort with this project. I am having a problem though with the output script, and am getting the following error message (after selecting continuous tone and 300 dpi):

HOSTED PHOTO
please log in to view hosted photos in full size.

Yes, I got Javascript errors like that also.

---Bob Gross---

Bob & Robert:

The JavaScript error is the result of not closing the layer set.

When you run the capture sharpener or creative sharpener, the layer set is left open (i.e., you can see the layers in the layer set). There is no way to close this by a script. There is no keyboard shortcut to do, no method on the layer set object, and the script listener ignores it. So you have to do it manually.

(BTW, the same is true for automation objects. That's why Photokit Sharpener also leaves the layer set open.)

If you close the layer set, all will work fine.

Cheers,

Mitch

I've only used it for 10 minutes and I did a little test on one of my photos that really could use some sharpening. WOW! I can't believe I was always using just USM sharpening before. I'm still in awe at this first photo I sharpened using your tool using smart sharpen. After using this I will be reading through your tutorial to see how this works. Great work!

gmitchel wrote:
Bob & Robert:

The JavaScript error is the result of not closing the layer set.

When you run the capture sharpener or creative sharpener, the layer set is left open (i.e., you can see the layers in the layer set). There is no way to close this by a script. There is no keyboard shortcut to do, no method on the layer set object, and the script listener ignores it. So you have to do it manually.

(BTW, the same is true for automation objects. That's why Photokit Sharpener also leaves the layer set open.)

If you close the layer set, all will work fine.

Cheers,

Mitch

Thanks Mitch,

I'll try it out!

I just posted version 1.0f to my site.

It is not possible to close the layer sets generated by the scripts
automatically.

People sometimes forget and get an error and the new layer set stuck
in a previous layer set. Not what they want.

I could have designed the script to make the new layer set on top of
the Layer palette, but that would remove the ability to make an
intermediate layer active and create a new layer right above it.

So, I added code to check and see if the active layer set is inside
a layer set *OR* or it is a layer set. Either event will trigger a
warning to close the action set before proceeding and cause the
script to exit at that point.

This is a more user friendly solution.

http://www.thelightsri​ghtstudio.com …onalSharpeningT​oolkit.htm

Cheers,

Mitch


--
http://www.thelightsri​ghtstudio.com
http://www.thelightsri​ght.com
http://groups.yahoo.co​m/group/TheLightsRight​/

Mitch, I'm going to download this (and a couple of your other scripts) this weekend. I'd also like to add to thanks for your great contribution to the community (in the real sense of the word).

You're a gent amongst gents!