Comments on: Sharpen those photos: Unsharp Mask

By: When RAW is not enough :: Photocritic photography blog

When RAW is not enough :: Photocritic photography blog — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 13:35:29 +0000

[...] photos are unsharpened out of the camera. This is a blessing, because as we discussed in the article on how you can sharpen your photos, you should never sharpen your photos twice. Your JPGs are sharpened in-camera, which means that if [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:35:48 +0000

Great article; very nicely written too. Thanks a lot!

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:15:43 +0000

A reminder not to do any but the most minimal sharpening on an image until you know how that image is to be used (e.g. for web site, ink-jet printer, publisher) along with its final image resolution and size. The parameter settings for USM sharpening are highly sensitive to the image size and resolution (i.e. pixel distances vary with size) – so be leery of the above recommendations. It is best to experiment and examine the final print output.

Many (magazine, book) publishers do NOT want you to apply any image sharpening – they will do it themselves once they determine how the image is to be printed.

Sharpening should always be the last step in a work flow for the above reasons.

Remember, image sharpening is intended to enhance the final photo product, NOT to fix blurry pictures.

By: Iram Rolon

Iram Rolon — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 05:17:50 +0000

Thanks you, Finally I understand

By: clipping mask

clipping mask — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:48:52 +0000

thank you for the tips

thanks for sharing

keep on posting:)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:53:14 +0000

Hey man—

Fantastic article. I’m diving into the world of photography, and this is a good thing to know. I’ll definitely be visiting this blog again.

By: antony madhu

antony madhu — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:35:26 +0000

your article is good and easy to fallow. Iam not good at photoshopping.But I can take good photos and have a good knowledge about photography.sometimes when I do this and that in photoshop, the colours become smudgy(like water spilled on a water colour painting)I can’t explain more than this.you will have to see the photo to understand.I could not remove it with the photoshop filters.Pl.advice if you have the time.thank you. My email id is there.

By: 53 Crazy-good Digital Photography Tutorials | Desinine

53 Crazy-good Digital Photography Tutorials | Desinine — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:14:23 +0000

[...] 40. Sharpen Those Photos: Unsharp Mask [...]

By: SHARPEN THOSE PHOTOS: UNSHARP MASK - Sherwins Place

SHARPEN THOSE PHOTOS: UNSHARP MASK - Sherwins Place — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:41:38 +0000

[...] http://photocritic.org/unsharp-mask-sharpening-photos-photoshop/ No comments for this entry yet… [...]

By: 53 Crazy-good Digital Photography Tutorials | Photoblog

53 Crazy-good Digital Photography Tutorials | Photoblog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:56:41 +0000

[...] 40. Sharpen Those Photos: Unsharp Mask [...]

By: 50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials | BabyGore

50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials | BabyGore — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:18:24 +0000

[...] Sharpen Those Photos: Unsharp Mask This tutorial shares a brief history of traditional photo sharpening techniques and how to sharpen images digitally in Photoshop. [...]

By: Daniel Mc Adam

Daniel Mc Adam — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:12:34 +0000

Thanks for the information its easy to understand and well presented.

By: Nuker

Nuker — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:02:23 +0000

Hi,
Very detail info, but I still have some doubt normally do i still need to sharpen the image before using USM? Only use-”USM” to replace “Sharpen” function?

Thanks

By: Gavin Appleby

Gavin Appleby — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:09:05 +0000

Fantastic finally a good explanation of USM and some good starter settings.

By: joju antony

joju antony — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:18:06 +0000

thanks for the useful information.

By: Jeff Ratliff

Jeff Ratliff — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:00:22 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I have a couple of questions. One is the same as Stu:
“Lower the brightness and contrast (approx 25 should do it).”
Do you mean increase to 25 (both brightness & contrast?) or decrease to -25?

The other has to do with the order of the layers:
“Move the unsharp mask layer to the top.”
If I’m following the instructions correctly, the blur, adjust, and apply refer to the top layer. Isn’t that the unsharp mask layer which is already on top?

Thanks again for your help and for posting this.

By: Daniel Condurachi

Daniel Condurachi — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:31:22 +0000

Great, just great… thank you very much for sharing with me. I really didn’t know all this stuff about sharping. Thanks’!

By: Ancke

Ancke — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:06:05 +0000

Cool! Great info for my project. Thanx!!!

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Wwe Divas Nude — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 15:12:29 +0000

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By: Ed Perchick

Ed Perchick — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 12:24:30 +0000

This is a great article, and very useful – although I have found, since I’ve started using Smart Sharpen in Photoshop CS2, that USM is rarely used anymore.

By: Paul Crisanti

Paul Crisanti — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 16:02:45 +0000

Good info-thanx

By: Travis Tackett

Travis Tackett — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 20:32:25 +0000

Great article. one of the better explanations I’ve found on the ‘net so far.

Thanks
Travis

By: Amit K

Amit K — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:29:13 +0000

Beautifully explained ! Specially the film part and digital part and then the explanation. Its worth reading the whole article
Thanks

By: bigstusexy

bigstusexy — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 15:22:59 +0000

Bah! I feel sooo upset and stupid that I can’t get this to work. I’ve been looking into doing unsharpening or smart sharpening (as labeled as a tut on the gimp site) with gimp.

Also my Photoshop elements doesn’t have the layer action subtract. I can set the layer mode to subtract, just like in gimp but I don’t see layer actions. A few of toutorials talk about what I call layer actions (they do more work than just setting the layer mode) and I think that may be key.

My questions would be:
When you say lower the contrast 25 should be enough. Do you mean move the contrast slider to the left, taking the value to -25?

Second the bluring option we are using gaussian blur right? Is that IIR or RLE? (which I have no idea what the difference is :D)

Finally my biggest question, could you post what the layers should look like on each step, or maybe a PSD file of how the layer should at the sets with the layer name labeled? I know this is a lot to ask and if you don’t want to I fully understand!

I’m going to go look around the net (I should be working :P) for other tuts to disect to see if I could get it working, my results were no where near like the automated tool.

Also if interested in looking around the net aready I’ve come accross a method that is said to help with halo control and the results I’ve seen were impressive. (No I don’t exactly know what halos are and I don’t have a direct like but I do know where I got it and could be easy to find again)

Stu-

By: Phil Balchin

Phil Balchin — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 22:51:41 +0000

Indeed, the USM filter is a godsend, and i did like your wite-up on the old-school way of doing things. You’ve also mentioned that the usm filter is destructive, well, you can do usm sharpening i a non-destructive way:

1. duplicate the layer
2. with the new layer, run the Filter->Other->High Pass filter, then set the radius + threshold as you’ved suggested, a grey image with the faint outline you mentiond (from the darkroom method?) will be displayed.
3. Set the layer mode from ‘normal’ to ‘Overlay’ an you’ll have the same effect as the USM filter.

Probably a bit beyond the scope of this article, but this smethod offers even more power, e.g. you can rub out areas of the sharp mask, you can reduce the opacity etc.

By: Andrew Ferguson

Andrew Ferguson — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 17:03:42 +0000

Hey,

Thanks for posting this. The Unsharp Mask is something that I’ve needed to learn for a while but haven’t been able to find a good tutorial that gave me all the details. This is the most useful article I’ve read on your site yet; I’d be a big fan of seeing more of these in the future.