Playing around with sharpness

[Charlie99]

Another trick is to use the luminosity blending mode to apply the sharpening. This helps to reduce any rainbow effects on the edges.

 

[justleesa]

uh! rainbow edges! get that when shooting MWB! thanks....now where can I find that in my PSE?

 

[Charlie99]

Threshold: 1-5 but most of the time never more then 3, 5 is a rare exception usually used for saving a image that i really want that i goofed on

sorry for this being a little hurried(and probable Typo's) but i wrote this very quickly before i have to go to work and i will try to clean it up if its not clear to anybody.

Thanks for the informative tutorial, but I don't understand the bit about threshold values.

I tend to use fairly high threshold values in order to keep from adding noise to blank areas such as open water. Higher numbers reduce the sharpening effect (or more accurately, further limits the pixels to which sharpening is applied).

 

[Charlie99]

uh! rainbow edges! get that when shooting MWB! thanks....now where can I find that in my PSE?

Just do sharpening like you usually do, then change the layer blending mode. This technique is one of the many useful ones that are in Scott Kelby's books.

BTW, another good "cheat" is to apply sharpening only to selected areas. Scott Kelby described the technique for portrait touch-up to lessen freckles or acne --- gaussian blur the photo to the point where freckles and acne blur out. Then add a blank layer just below, and group it. The eliminates the effect. Then paint the blank layer black where you want to restore the gaussian blur.

I sometimes use the same technique, but have a sharpened layer at the top and painting in sharpened areas instead.

 

[Scubatooth]

Thanks for the informative tutorial, but I don't understand the bit about threshold values.

I tend to use fairly high threshold values in order to keep from adding noise to blank areas such as open water. Higher numbers reduce the sharpening effect (or more accurately, further limits the pixels to which sharpening is applied).

charlie

easiest way to explain this. open a image and just roll your mouse over the image and look in the upper right hand corner in PS 7or CS and look at the RGB numbers of the individual pixels these are the numbers that the threshold is looking for. example say you have a threshold set 2 and you have some pixels in the image that are (just for this example )127,127,127 125,127,127 and 127, 159, 250. well in this case the first two sets of pixels would be sharpened and the third set wont because its to far off from the other pixels that are nearby. threshold sharpening is for adjoining pixels for the effect.

does this clear things up ?


Tooth



BTW if you have a image that has a background that is one solid color my suggestion would be masking the items to be sharpened and duplicate to a new layer as this is what i do.

 

[PapaBob]

Tooth:

Nice tutorial! I apply the unsharp mask "to taste" and your explanation helps me understand how the adjustment works. The effort is appreciated.

---Bob

 

[Charlie99]

charlie

easiest way to explain this. open a image and just roll your mouse over the image and look in the upper right hand corner in PS 7or CS and look at the RGB numbers of the individual pixels these are the numbers that the threshold is looking for. example say you have a threshold set 2 and you have some pixels in the image that are (just for this example )127,127,127 125,127,127 and 127, 159, 250. well in this case the first two sets of pixels would be sharpened and the third set wont because its to far off from the other pixels that are nearby. threshold sharpening is for adjoining pixels for the effect.

does this clear things up ?

Not really. My understanding is pretty much the reverse of you what you describe.

Open a file. Any file. Just for this example, crank up the Amount to 500%, and leave Radius at some setting like 1 or 2. Now slide Threshold back and forth. 0 threshold will be have the maximum amount of sharpening, 255 in the threshold box will eliminate all sharpening.

So my understanding would be that in the examples you gave, that the third set of numbers would always be sharpening, and the 2nd set only if threshold is 2 OR LESS. The 127,127,127 set is irrelevant since there isn't any data differences to enhance.

 

[Scubatooth]

basically if sharpening is done right it shouldnt be noticeable this is why i use a small radius and threshold and adjust the amount to get the look i need. i will have to pull some examples of before and after from my image library once i reinstall everything on my laptop

here is a link to a good article about sharpening http://www.carlvolk.com/photoshop03.htm

tooth