Basics Of Sharpening Summary:
In this tutorial we will be discussing the first 4 sharpening techniques (sharpen, sharpen edges, sharpen more and unsharp mask) in Photoshop. We will show you the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. Each technique will be explained in detail on what it does and its limitations. Along the way, we will give you tips and tricks such as how to partially sharpen an image. Don’t worry if these 4 different techniques do not sharpen your image perfectly because we will be having more sharpening tutorials in the next few courses.
If you are unfamiliar with certain areas that are not covered in this tutorial, feel free check out other tutorials on our website. We have many different types of tutorials that can be downloaded (Video, PDF) or viewed online that will train you for free! Once you have the knowledge, feel free to come back and go through this tutorial again.
You will be using a picture of text. If you do not have this image, please scroll down to the image of “Click Picture To Download Supporting Files” and download the image. Please open the image PE-SHARPENEXAMPLE in the Photoshop program and duplicate the background layer.
We just finished most of the adjustment tutorials, which will correct colors, brightness/contrast, etc. Now that you understand how to create adjustment layers, we felt it was important to show you how sharpen an image.
There are many ways to sharpen an image in Photoshop and each way has its advantages and disadvantages. If you search on the web for the best sharpening methods in Photoshop, you will find everyone will have their own opinion. Some will say unsharp mask or smart sharpen while others may say the high pass method. The problem is some methods work excellent with a specific sharpening area, while other areas of the image it actually looks worse. Where NOT here to tell you what method is the best, but we are here to show you the common basic sharpening techniques. We will let you decide which method works for your specific image. The only recommendation we will give is we find better results when a tool allows you to manually adjust the settings.
Before we begin, it is important to understand that a very blurred image will NOT look perfect even if you tweak or adjust and use all the tools in Photoshop. You can fix images that were taken a bit out of focus and make them look perfect, but don’t expect miracles if the image has motion blur (there are tools to help motion blur) or extremely out of focus. Now that we have given you a bit of a disclaimer, let’s proceed and explain how Photoshop sharpens an image.
The first tool we will be talking about is the Sharpen Filter. This tool dates back many years in the Photoshop program and when you use this tool it increases the contrast between the pixels. It finds the dark shades and the lighter shades in the image and darkens the darker shades and lightens the lighter shades. This creates a stronger contrast.
**Close and re-open the image or use the history palette, so the image is blurred again.
**Close and re-open the image or use the history palette, so the image is blurred again.
**Close and re-open the image or use the history palette, so the image is blurred again.
A). Left click “OK” to apply and “Cancel” to disregard the changes. | |
B). Make sure the “Preview” option has a check in the box, so you can see the changes in the image as you make the adjustments. | |
C).
Move your mouse pointer to this preview section. To move the image,
HOLD down the Left mouse button and drag the mouse. Now release the Left
mouse button. Photoshop Tip – If you want to see what
the original looked like, HOLD down the Left mouse button (no need to
move the mouse) and it will display the original. Release the Left mouse
button when you would like to view it modified again. | |
D). Left click either the “-“ or “+” to zoom in and out. |
A). The Amount is the amount of contrast you want added to the edge. | |
B). The Radius is how much you want to increase the size of the edges. | |
C). The Threshold is telling Photoshop how different the values of the brightness is before determining the edges. | |
D).
You can also enter a numeric value in these text boxes. Left click the
box and enter, 500% for the amount, 0.9 pixels for the radius and 0 for
the threshold for this tutorial. |
There are 2 common easy ways to sharpen only a portion of the image. 1). You can select the portion that you want to sharpen and use the filter while that portion is selected. Anything inside the selection will be sharpened. 2). Use a sharpen tool in Photoshop and then mask the areas you want to hide. This means you will need a copy of the blurred image below the sharpened image layer. Just create a mask on the sharpened layer and you can get some good results.
As you can see, we used text as the image. Here is some before and after images of our cat (Destiny). Notice the blur on top of the head and back of the cat.
As we go through the next few tutorials, we will be talking about other techniques that allow you to sharpen an image. Remember, not 1 tool is perfect for a specific sharpening. Remember, we already discussed back in the Smudge, Sharpen, Blur Tools tutorial about the sharpening tool. We use that tool a lot to enhance a specific small area of a photo.
In the next few tutorials, we will be showing you some more techniques or filters that can be used to sharpen your image. For now, you should have an understanding how to use the sharpen, sharpen edges, sharpen more, and unsharp mask filters in the Photoshop program.
1). What is the keyboard shortcut to use the last Filter used in Photoshop?
A). CTRL-“R”. | |
B). CTRL-“U”. | |
C). CTRL-“F”. | |
D). CTRL-“L”. |
A). Adjustment. | |
B). Filter. | |
C). Correction. | |
D). Edit. |
A). Use the sharpen technique and then add a layer mask to remove the portions you do not want to be sharpened. | |
B). Right click on the sharpen tool and select “Partial Sharpen”. | |
C). Make a selection around the area that you do not want to sharpen and apply the sharpen technique. | |
D).
Copy that portion to a new layer and then sharpen that specific portion
of that layer and then reposition that layer so it correctly matches up
with the other layer. This is easiest way to sharpen only a portion of
the image. |
A). Sharpen. | |
B). Sharpen More. | |
C). Sharpen Edges. | |
D). Unsharp Mask. |
A).
It is always better to let the digital camera make the adjustments and
then fine tune the adjustments, corrections in Photoshop. | |
B). You should only use the “Sharpen Edge” tool in Photoshop to correct the out of focus images. | |
C).
Use different sharpen tools and try to save the image on the digital
camera as a raw file so you can make all the adjustments in the
Photoshop program. | |
D). When sharpening, you should always begin with the “Auto” command in the sharpen filters menu. |
A). It tells how much color you want to apply to the center of the sharpen. | |
B). You are telling Photoshop how much contrast to apply. | |
C). You are telling Photoshop how different the pixels should be before it makes the changes. | |
D). It tells the program how much area you will be masking. |
A). It tells Photoshop how big of an edge you would like to add. | |
B). You are telling Photoshop how strong the contrast and brightness you want to apply to the overall image. | |
C). It is only used to tell Photoshop the radius of the area that you will be masking (this is why the tool is called Unsharp Mask). | |
D). It tells Photoshop to adjust only specific colored pixels. |
A). Left click the “Original” button on the right hand side and it will display the original blurred image. | |
B). Drag the preview image to the “Original” button to display the original blurred image. | |
C). The only way to see the original is by turning off the “Preview” option in the dialog box. | |
D). In the preview image, HOLD down the Left mouse button to display the original blurred image. |
A). It allows you to decrease or increase the sharpening of the image. | |
B). It allows you to decrease or increase the contrast of the image. | |
C). It allows you to zoom in and out of the preview. | |
D). It allows you to decrease or increase the contrast and sharpening at the same time. |
A). It usually will correct the edges of the image perfectly by adjusting the dark and lighter shades. | |
B). It usually will correct non-edges perfectly. | |
C). When applied you will usually see subtle changes to the edges only. | |
D). When applied you will usually see subtle changes in the whole image. |
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