SHARPENING in

photoshop
Intermediate/advanced level tutorial Gry Garness 2007-08

In my humble opinion, sharpening is one the hardest things to master in Photo-

shop. Lets start with the fact that sharpening isnt really sharpening, but an opti-
cal illusion. Pixels dont go pointier with sharpening, but they increase in contrast.
For the sake of simplicity Ill call it sharpening but you know that Ill always think
of it with inverted commas.

Over-sharpening is one of the most common reasons for file rejection from pic-
ture libraries, and professional clients. On inspection one might find Man-Ray-
sabbatierish edges surrounding objects, colour distortion, noise in shadows, ar-
tifacts in smooth areas. And successive sharpenings throughout the workflow can
really introduce roughness to a beautiful smooth image.

So why do we sharpen? Mainly we do it because there is a loss of image sharp-

ness at various stages of the process of capture, image resizing, retouching and
sometimes even in the colour adjustment. By the time the image is ready to go to
print it has lost some original sharpness, and when the ink dots hit paper they will
diffuse somewhat- and cause even more loss of definition. So we usually have to
apply some sharpening as the very last thing before the image goes to print. Above: The left side of the image has not been sharpened. The right side has been sharpened with
Unsharp Mask: Amount 180, Radius 0.6 and Threshold 0. In the sky the sharpening has been re-
Then there are the images that are plainly not sharp in the first place. I find it duced through a History Fill of 50%. Below: Screen-Zoomed in to 1600% on a high level of sharp-
highly entertaining when I see forensic dramas on film & TV where they turn ening. You can see clearly the contrast and saturation this creates, creating an illusion of sharpness.
a blob-like image from CCTV into a sharp defined image. Reality check: those
things are filmed in reverse. No way is a blob going to turn into a sharp image.
With some definition however, a high-radius-low-amount (hiraloam) sharpening
can help the illusion of sharpness. Read on to find out how.

Before we start on the actual sharpening methods, let me say that there isnt a
single way or amount of sharpening that benefits all images. Each image (or series
of images) demands a different sharpening.

gry garness 2007 www.grygarness.com All rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or reproduction of this tutorial or its content.
INTRODUCTION TO SHARPENING
You may know and use sharpening every day, but take a moment to skim this anyway. This
will give you a good basis for going on to the more advanced techniques.

WHEN TO SHARPEN?
Some photographers like to input-sharpen. Its gratifying to have a sharp image to work with
on screen, but I find that it comes back to haunt me when I finally output-sharpen, by giving
rough edges. So I dont do this, and I particularly would like to warn against edge-sharpening
at an early stage. Too often this can really cause problems later on. Generally I suggest you
leave the gratification of sharpening and it really is rather gratifying until the end of the
whole process. But there is one exception: HiRaLoAm sharpening for the slightly fuzzy files
and those images that need more of a 3-D feel. I also use HiRaLoAm sharpening sometimes
on faces and figures to create shape, and I do this as an integrated part of the retouching
process.

HOW DOES SHARPENING WORK?

Above: The non-sharpened image is a touch on the soft side. Its
Lets start with looking at Photoshops Unsharp Mask. Apart from Smart Sharpen, this is
a difficult one, firstly because its a scan (from medium format
the only sharpening under Filter>Sharpen> that gives control of the sharpening. Ignore the
transparency) with grain that can easily be too exaggerated, and
negative name, which originally comes from the repro industry. Sharpening works by finding
also because it has a hard edge between the head and the sky
contrast between adjacent pixels and amplifying that contrast, making lines and edges more
background, which can easily give a halo.
defined, but also amplifying any noise in the image. Bad sharpening will tend to create a
visible halo around edges, and visible noise. Even worse, if a high Threshold is applied, it can
Top right: the benchmark setting, before any tweaking.
look incredibly artificial, and often exaggerate the difference between textures. The trick is to
find a good relationship between the Radius and Amount, without any unnatural transitions,
Below left: The haloed edges are exaggerated at a Radius of 2.
or excessive noise. Most often I leave the Threshold alone, and try to keep the Radius low to
Avoid this at all costs.
avoid haloing. There are many ways of making a threshold for sharpening, but more on that
later.
Below right: finding a suitable radius at 0.6 (the amount is still
too high).
AND HOW DO WE DO IT?
Go first to View>Actual Pixels (or zoom in to 100%) as this is the only view where you see
the true pixels on screen, and can make correct judgments about the sharpening. Then go
to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. Start with a benchmark setting. I tend to use Amount
200 Radius 0.5 as my benchmark for 300 ppi images and Amount:100 Radius 0.4 for 72ppi
web/screen images. This gives you a starting point thats the same time every time you enter
the dialog, but dont ever forget that its only a starting point. Dont get lazy! After setting the
Benchmark, work with the Radius slider. Look in an area that has visible definition between
objects or elements in the image. Try finding the radius-level just before it starts introducing
a visible edge between objects. We want to avoid the visible halo which is so often a telltale
sign of bad sharpening. Once the radius is established you can often reduce the amount, tog-
gling the preview button on & off, and finally viewing the image at 50% before you commit
the command. If the image is nice and crisp at 50% view, press OK. If not, go back to 100%
view, and adjust accordingly before you commit. I generally sharpen a little harder for print
than for screen, because of the spread of ink on paper, which tends to diffuse the sharpness
a bit.
gry garness 2007 www.grygarness.com All rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or reproduction of this tutorial or its content.
AMOUNT controls how much darker or lighter the IMPORTANT NOTE ON KEYBOARD SHORT-
pixels become. Its the volume control which de- CUTS FOR THESE TUTORIALS
termines the amplification of the edge radius. Start In the interest of keeping things flowing
with (for example) 200 as a benchmark. throughout the tutorials, Ive made some
compromises on how I label the shortcut keys.
RADIUS controls the width of the halo around a Having trained both Mac and Windows users
pixel or edge. Where the filter detects contrast be- over several years, Ive found that its non-
tween pixels, it will make the dark pixels darker, intuitive to list both platforms shortcuts at the
and the light pixels lighter. You can see this particu- same time, because it distracts from the flow.
larly clearly if there is a defined line in the subject, After some research among students I have
such as the head of the Angel image against the come to the following compromise, which is
sky. In the same image you can see how it enhances partly Mac-biased and partly Windows-biased:
the texture of the stone at low Radius, but becomes
confused and actually appears less sharp at higher Command = Mac apple-key and equivalent
radius. Keep it low (0.5-1.5) when you want to pre- to Control in Windows.
serve fine detail, or higher (up to 2.2) for more de-
Above right: compare the sharpened version Alt = Option on a Mac and Alt in Windows
fined edges. For images with less defined edges, a
high radius and a low Amount will often work well. with this non-sharpened image.
Shift is the same on both
More about that later.
Above left: The Unsharp Mask settings I chose Enter = the same as Return
to apply here was Amount: 160 and Radius:
THRESHOLD is intended to protect the smoother
0.6, with no Threshold. Backspace = the same as Delete
areas of an image by making the filter ignore the
more lightly textured areas, such as skin. However, Left: Same setting as the above left, but with a
because it has no idea of what the texture/subject Threshold of 5.
is, it tends to allow sharpening of pores and inhibit
sharpening of the smooth areas of skin. The image
on the right has had the same Amount and Radius
(A:160 R:0.6) applied as the above image, but also
a Threshold of 5. If you look closely at he sky and
certain parts of the stone face, youll see smooth
areas, despite some areas being just as defined as
NOISE CAUSED BY SHARPENING
before. I suggest that if you use Threshold, keep it Noise is one of those things we generally want to avoid. Noise is really just pixels differing
to the minimum of 1. from each other either in colour, brightness, or both. Look at the top image of the first page
of this tutorial. Notice that not only are the edges of this zoomed in image more defined,
If youre a beginner, get to know the variables de- but the pixels in the smooth areas also differentiate more clearly. In a smooth area such as a
scribed above, before venturing into even more sky it becomes more noticeable. If an image is captured with too much noise, its something
complex variables. The more images youve sharp- that should be removed at the start if possible. Sharpening will usually add in more noise,
ened, the more intuitive youll find the process, and especially at high-amount settings. A little bit of noise introduced by sharpening is sometimes
just beneficial in the same way that grain is for traditional photography, because it can help to
the more youll appreciate how totally different im-
hold in the gradients in smooth surfaces so they avoid banding in print. But if you find that
ages can be in terms of the sharpening they need.
the sharpening introduces more than a touch of noise, youll have to resort to some clever
Also, the more you do it, the more youll develop techniques to avoid it. Youll probably have found by now that the sharpening described
an eye for it. So if youre a beginner, put the rest here doesnt make your fuzzy image any less fuzzy. So on the next pages theres a fairly
of the tutorial aside for now, and come back to it comprehensive overview of a range of sharpening techniques in Photoshop none of which
when youve covered a few sharpening miles. require any external plugins, but some that can be applied using third-party plugins.
gry garness 2007 www.grygarness.com All rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or reproduction of this tutorial or its content.
AVOIDING COLOUR DISTORTION
If colour is already strong, you can restrict the sharpening to
brightness only. Directly after committing the sharpening filter, go
to Edit>Fade (Unsharp Mask) and leave the slider at 100%. On
the Mode drop-down, choose Luminosity. On most images, the
effect of this is very subtle, but on some it really pays off. This is
not the same as sharpening the Lightness channel, as described
below.
AVOIDING NOISY SHADOWS
This is a common problem in images that have been underex-
posed in camera and corrected brighter in Photoshop. We can
avoid some of the damage by sharpening the Lab Lightness chan-
nel. Before you sharpen, convert to Mode>Lab Color. In the
Channels Palette, click on the Lightness channels thumbnail.
Press the tilde key ~ on the keyboard to see the image in colour
whilst working in the Lightness channel. Use the Unsharp Mask
or other sharpening of your choice. Convert back to RGB. The
image will have had a slightly less destructive sharpening than
overall in RGB.
AVOIDING NOISE OVERALL (advanced)
In a scanned 35mm image you often have a high degree of noise
in the first place. I dont usually like to use edge sharpening, be-
cause it can look very fake, but heres a fairly benign method:
Duplicate the retouched layer (or the Background).
Perform a Hiraloam sharpening, making it a bit too powerful.
Find the most contrasty channel in the Channels palette.
Duplicate this channel.
Go to Filter>Stylize>Find Edges (the edges go black).
Go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use around 5-8 px.
Press Command+I to invert the channel.
Load the channel as a selection by Command-clicking on it.
Click on the RGB thumbnail and return to the layers palette.
Click on the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the palette.
This will have made a mask that reduces the sharpening. To see
how much it has reduced the sharpening, hold down the Shift key
and click on the mask. It turns the mask off temporarily. Shift-
click to turn it back on. To see the effect of the sharpening, click on
the layers eyeball. If you need to protect the image more, make
sure the mask is active and press Command+L for Levels. Make
mask whites whiter, and dark areas darker. The more you darken,
the more you protect. You can also mask off more (with black) if
some areas are too noisy.
gry garness 2007 www.grygarness.com All rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or reproduction of this tutorial or its content.
HIRALOAM SHARPENING FOR BETTER SHAPE
HiRaLoAm stands for High-Radius-Low-Amount. Im not sure
who made up that name, but its often used by Dan Margulis. By
using a high Radius to the point where the haloes are no longer
haloes, but large areas of lightness and darkness, you can create
more of a 3-dimensional feel to an image. Of course when you use
a whopping high radius like this, you must compensate by taking
the amount down to a very low setting. My benchmark starting
point for this is an Amount of 100, with the Radius starting up
from the lowest setting. I dont let the harsh contrast of the image
worry me while I drag up the radius slider to a high level, look-
ing for the point where I get the best shape/modelling of the
elements within the image. When that is established, the Amount
can be taken down to 1. Blink a couple of times to re-set your
eyes, and start dragging the slider upwards. Get your reality check
by clicking the Preview button off/on. This method has the added
advantage of introducing very little noise.
IMAGES THAT LACK SHARPNESS
You can use the above method, or you can try this one, which will
also add contrast, and more vivid colours. Make a duplicate layer
and blend it to Soft Light in the Layers Palettes blending drop-
down. Reduce its opacity to 50%. Go to Filter>Other>High
Pass. The setting here can be visually assessed by dragging the
slider and looking at the image. Lower settings of around 5 give
a more conventional sharpening, while higher settings (10 and
above) are often more suitable if you have a real lack-of-sharpness
problem. Remember that the layer can be reduced in opacity
afterwards, and that it can even be partially masked off.
LIMIT THE SHARPENING of HIGHLIGHTS or SHADOWS
Smart Sharpen is good, but slightly complex, and very hard work
for the computer. If the latter is an issue, find the best over-
all setting in Unsharp Mask first, and take note of the setting
without applying. Then go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen,
and before you do anything, make sure the Advanced radio but-
ton is clicked, and More Accurate is unticked. Dial in the Amount
and Radius settings you noted (no theres no Threshold, but
you can impose threshold through Fade Amount here). Choose
Lens Blur on the Remove drop-down. It might look a touch more
sharpened than it did in the Unsharp Mask, but go directly to the
Highlights or Shadows tab, and use the Fade Amount slider to
impose a threshold on the highlights or/and shadows. I would
normally leave Tonal Width and Radius as they are.
SKIN SHARPENING
This method can be used in combination with almost any sharp-
ening filter, as it uses a selection that partly protects the skin. Youll
usually find that the Red Channel is much brighter in the skin than
the other channels, because skin is predominantly red. You can
load a luminosity selection based on the highlights in the red
channel, by Command-clicking on the Red Channel icon. Go
immediately to Select>Inverse and then press Command+H.
This just hides the marching ants. The selection now omits the
brightest reds and the skin is just partially selected. You can now
apply the sharpening, which will have less impact on the skin,
leaving it less rugged than if you had applied the sharpening with-
out the selection. If you are sharpening quite aggressively, note
that the sharpening is relatively more powerful on dark tones and
blue + green colours. Remember to deselect when youre done.
SHARPEN FOR SUPERFINE TEXTURE
This gives a finer sharpening for fine fur and highly detailed ob-
jects, so its the best sharpening for cats! Press Command+J to
make a Layer via Copy. Apply a slightly aggressive sharpening
in Unsharp Mask, but dont let it make visible haloes. Change the
blending mode of the sharpened layer to Darken in the Layers
Palette dropdown. Press Command+J to make another Layer
via Copy from the Darken layer, and change the blending mode
of this new layer to Lighten. Reduce the opacity of the Lighten
layer to 60%. You can also lower the opacity of the Darken layer
if the sharpening is still too aggressive, and experiment more with
the opacity of the top layer.
SMART FILTERS
Although CS3 is out, I have deliberately written this tutorial with-
out mentioning Smart Filters, because the majority of users will
still be on older versions. Incorporating smart filters into these
workflows is not hard at all. The greatest benefit of smart filters
is that you can re-edit them after they are committed. This will
make it easier when you re-scale an image, to re-edit the sharpen-
ing. Masks can be added to the filters, and blending modes too.
To use filters in this way (make a duplicate layer) and go to the
Filter menu and choose Convert For Smart Filters. This turns the
layer into a smart object, which you cant paint on it at this point,
so retouching should be finished. Then apply the filter as normal.
Youll notice that it has a white empty mask, which you can use
if you wish, as well as access to blending options and opacity
through a slider icon to the right of the name of the filter.
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MORE FREE TUTORIALS This is a PDF document. Its compatible with Adobe
Actions free tutorial Reader 6 and newer versions, but will display best in
Masking free tutorial Adobe Reader 8. Get the latest Adobe Reader 8 (free) at
Sharpening free tutorial http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/ This new reader
Pen Tool Paths free tutorial is hugely improved, with a nice clean interface. Did you
Black & White in RGB free tutorial know that you can get the Adobe Reader to read the
Monochrome optimization free tutorial tutorials out loud while you work in Photoshop?
Local Colour Correction free tutorial
Raw Workflow CS3 free tutorial
Raw Workflow CS2 free tutorial
10 tips on Beauty Retouching free tutorial
10 tips on PS Colour Optimization free tutorial
10 tips on Compositing free tutorial
10 tips on PS Efficiency free tutorial
10 tips on Sharpening free tutorial
10 tips on Layers free tutorial
10 tips on Selections free tutorial
10 tips on Retouching free tutorial
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