Any easy way of sharpening for lazy me?

DayDreamer

DayDreamer

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John
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I've read articles, looked at You Tube stuff but is there anyway I can 'cut to the chase' and be able to sharpen as easily as possible without fiddling too much and without the risk of over sharpening which is so easy to do. Auto sharpening, in software, doesn't seem that great so wonder.................?
 
The problem is different images need different sharpening, the size and type of image will also affect how much you need.
What software do you have,?
 
Thanks Christine & Wayne for getting back to me (y)

I have PE10, CS4 (& Picasa :p )
 
Starting with an image that is a single layer:

Layer>duplicate layer> filter>other>high pass> adjust radius until image looks mono>soft light blending mode (in layers palette)>flatten image.

Shout if any of that doesn't make sense. It's known as 'high pass sharpening' and works pretty well on many images, but as Wayne says, you really need to learn how to sharpen. Think of it as being like any other part of photography. If you use auto methods, it won't look as good as it could.

There are no short cuts in learning photography. Sorry.
 
jon ryan said:
Starting with an image that is a single layer:

Layer>duplicate layer> filter>other>high pass> adjust radius until image looks mono>soft light blending mode (in layers palette)>flatten image.

Shout if any of that doesn't make sense. It's known as 'high pass sharpening' and works pretty well on many images, but as Wayne says, you really need to learn how to sharpen. Think of it as being like any other part of photography. If you use auto methods, it won't look as good as it could.

There are no short cuts in learning photography. Sorry.
Click to expand...

But there are simpler ways - I use Serif PhotoPlus X2 and once an image is loaded in (and before any more PP) I just click on "effects" and then scroll down to "sharpen" and click it - job done for that stage.

At the end and after all other PP work is done I just go down to "Sharpen" again and usually select "Unsharp Mask" and select about 20 then click - preview the finished image and if good save it - if not just try again at a higher or lower setting and when satisfied save.

Of course some images do need more work but for me most of my photos are done like that - incidentally I shoot JPEGs in camera with the sharpening set to 0 to minimise noise.

.
 
jon ryan said:
Starting with an image that is a single layer:

Layer>duplicate layer> filter>other>high pass> adjust radius until image looks mono>soft light blending mode (in layers palette)>flatten image.

Shout if any of that doesn't make sense. It's known as 'high pass sharpening' and works pretty well on many images, but as Wayne says, you really need to learn how to sharpen. Think of it as being like any other part of photography. If you use auto methods, it won't look as good as it could.

There are no short cuts in learning photography. Sorry.
Click to expand...

Hi Jon and thank you so much for taking the trouble to help me. I remember a few years ago having a really good attempt to learn PP skills from the magazine (the £14.99 type not the £3.99 ones :nono: ) cover discs.

But because of a health issue, in the middle of this year affecting my gray matter, it all seems to have either gone or hidden itself in the depths. I think it was one of the factors that made me frustrated with owning a Fuji X10 which needs learning. I really did re-learn the user guide on more than once occasion but did it stick - no :bonk: Pinhole camera may be the way to go for me.

But back on the subject I will try and not only learn it but make some notes :LOL:
 
Hi Peter and thank you as well - I guess I need to consider all options and see what will work for me - so many types of software :clap:
 
You'll get reasonable results in CS4 just using filter>sharpen then edit>fade usually about 30% is ample.
Sharpening too much will easily spoil a good photo, but most benefit from a little tweak - as the last thing you do before saving.
For web display use a little more and view your saved file in a browser.
It often looks surprisingly different.
 
4wd said:
You'll get reasonable results in CS4 just using filter>sharpen then edit>fade usually about 30% is ample.
Sharpening too much will easily spoil a good photo, but most benefit from a little tweak - as the last thing you do before saving.
For web display use a little more and view your saved file in a browser.
It often looks surprisingly different.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help and another way for me to try. I so agree that too much sharpening can wreck a good shot. I see it so many times on pics, on TP, and wonder if the member's monitor is that bad they haven't seen it. Unless of course they like it like that :shrug:
 
You might want to try smart sharpen or unsharp mask (filter/sharpen/smart sharpen) both of these are pretty easy to use.
Scott kelby suggests for a general purpose sharpen to use unsharp mask with an amount of 85%, radius 1 and threshold 4.
 
I'm glad I've seen this as sharpening is something I have always been unsure!
I can tell an over sharpened image but struggle to know if I've sharpened to its maximum without over sharpening!
I've seen that you sharpen differently for web but am unsure of how to sharpen for web!
Do you sharpen differently for print?
 
There is a view that an image should have two or three stages of sharpening.
1 capture sharpening, this is a mild sharpen to "fix" the slight bluring caused by the AA filter over the sensor.
2 creative sharpening, this is a selective sharpen of say the eyes in a portrait, or just the foreground in a landscape, that sort of thing.
3 output sharpen, this will vary a lot depending on whether for print or web and at the actual finished size.
There is a book on sharpening. Real world sharpening by Jeff Schewe and Bruce Fraiser, well worth a read if you can find it.
 
Thank you all so much for your help.

I WILL spend some time absorbing the information as my initial attempts make a real difference to my test shots :clap:
 
Output sharpening is the way to go.

It is a bit like eating, If you are no longer hungry you have eaten too much.

If it looks sharp on screen you have probably gone too far.
 
Again many thanks to you all and Garry more recently. I must admit high pass sharpening was a phrase I've never heard of so I found this method very interesting. But like all things on a PC there is usually more than one way of getting there :clap:
 
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