Another good way to sharpen an image is with a multi-pass sharpen.
(all with threshhold set to 0)
First one is radius 100, amount 20%
Second one is radius 20, amount 20%
Third one is radisu 4, amount 30%
Fourth one is radius 0.5, amount 100%
That sharpens the image considerably without halo-ing it. Also, when you do this, your darks get a bit darker, lights get a bit lighter. So don't add contrast before this step. In fact, you may need to flatten the image a little and leave it with LESS contrast before doing this. But worth it in the end!
Second Mav's post, and to add, I've played around with reducing or increasing slightly the amount at each step, I've found that being a little more conservative, e.g. 15%, 15%, 25%, 75% yields excellent results when conservative sharpening is called for.
I also heartily recommend setting threshold to non-zero value (3-4 usually, but depends on initial noise level) to minimize raising noise.
Edit:
I also use the Fred Miranda sharpening action, and I very much like the results.
Another recommended sharpening technique is to only do your sharpening in Lab mode in the luminosity channel (you can achieve the same thing in RGB by fading the USM in luminosity mode).
By combining USM and gaussian blur layers (with care) you can also remove halo effects.
Frisca alerted me to this helpful thread--Thanks! Using Mavik's technique actually created unclarity in the three photos I tried it on. I even fiddled with the levels some when it wasn't working.
I got MUCH better results with just the last step:
Threshold=0
Radius= 0.5
Amount= varied greatly depending on photo (but from approx. 125% to 300%)
I also tried this variation with my three photos:
Threshold=0
Radius=1
Amount=varied greatly depending on photo but was much smaller: 75% - 200%
It looked about the same, though the first method got me more fine details, which was important for one of the photos.
Once I started raising the radius, I began to get a distortion of the image the higher the radius: the fine detail was lost and the photo began to actually look unclear and, for lack of a better term, 'pixel-crystaline', even though it was in focus.
basically recommends a 3-pass approach to sharpening.
That's a good article. My only "concern" is that the recommendations for the final output sharpening may encourage a little too much, since most of us are not creating output for halftone presses (well, I do at work, but that's different).
I think one has to be especially careful of oversharpening lo-res images like we post here, since they're always being viewed at that actual pixels "chunky" state.
basically recommends a 3-pass approach to sharpening.
That's a good article. My only "concern" is that the recommendations for the final output sharpening may encourage a little too much, since most of us are not creating output for halftone presses (well, I do at work, but that's different).
I think one has to be especially careful of oversharpening lo-res images like we post here, since they're always being viewed at that actual pixels "chunky" state.
Yup, exactly the point - that final sharpening pass has to be very tuned to whatever output format you are going for, print needs at varying sizes and viewing distances are quite different, as are those for web needs
With the multi-pass sharepen, do you proform each sharpening and save before the next sharpening is proformed?
Originally posted by mavrik:
Another good way to sharpen an image is with a multi-pass sharpen.
(all with threshhold set to 0)
First one is radius 100, amount 20%
Second one is radius 20, amount 20%
Third one is radisu 4, amount 30%
Fourth one is radius 0.5, amount 100%
That sharpens the image considerably without halo-ing it. Also, when you do this, your darks get a bit darker, lights get a bit lighter. So don't add contrast before this step. In fact, you may need to flatten the image a little and leave it with LESS contrast before doing this. But worth it in the end!
Has anyone ever tried this method?
I got this from one of the photo websites.
Sharpens very well with no halos.
1. Open photo
2. layer - duplicate layer (name sharpen or etc)
3. filter - other - high pass (on the new layer)
4. hard light (Layer tool box)
5. adjust opacity (usually 20% - 70%)
Hey Calvus, I do it that way except, I use the "overlay" in the layer box. I'll have to check out and see how hard light works. But that High Pass filter works pretty good.
