Sharpening

page five
Here is a moderately sharpened peach. I used an amount of 130 % and a threshold of 0. Radius was at the default setting of 1.
     This was a nice image to start with so the difference is not that pronounced. If you have poor quality pictures, the unsharp mask can make a really big difference.
     There is also a sharpen tool in the tool box, hiding behind the blur and smudge tools. I find that its effects are much too abrupt and irregular, but you might try it for a localized effect.
     A basic, simple procedure to use, when you want to apply sharpening with the Unsharp Mask, but don’t know what settings to use, is:

  1. Set the Amount slider to the maximum 500 %.
  2. Increase the Threshold slider until sharpening in unwanted areas such as skin, and shadows has disappeared.
  3. Increase the Radius setting as much as you can without obliterating needed details. This can vary quite a lot from image to image.
  4. Go back to the Amount slider, and set it for as much or as little as you like, which will most frequently be somewhere between 100 and 200 %.
If you have problems with color halos appearing on your sharpened edges, a commonly used technique is to choose Filter > Fade immediately after applying the sharpening. In the Fade dialog box that appears, change the blend mode to Luminosity, and possibly lower the Opacity setting. For Photoshop v. 6.0 users, the Fade command is under Edit > Fade.
     One last thing that I’d like to say, and this is my opinion only, is that you should consider the possibility of not sharpening at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Photoshop site that didn’t recommend automatically sharpening all images. I find that I can spot ‘Photoshopped’ images by their often bizarre level of sharpness. They look like they are scenes from an alien planet.
     We live in a world that has smog, smoke, fog, humidity, motion, wind, vibrations, and which is alive. Absolute sharpness is not a natural condition. Excessive sharpness can often look fake, phony, sterile, artificial, and dead.
     Consider using the burn, and dodge tools to accentuate important highlights and shadows, and leave the sharpness, or lack thereof, alone.

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