Tutorial High Pass sharpening - my take on it,

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High Pass sharpening - my take on it, - High Pass sharpening - my take on it,

Following Glo's request I've cobbled together this quick tutorial for high pass sharpening, a method I now use all the time having stumbled across it some months ago. The difference I notice is that it introduces little or no noise to the image unlike USM. If you have a noisy picture to start with I have found that by applying this method, then Noise Reduction (I use Neat Image) and again applying the High Pass sharpening it gives pretty good results although obviously you will have to...
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Well presented and very helpful!

Even I could do that :)
 
Holy hooplas, thats brilliant! Just did a comparion test using a picture of Piccadilly Circus, one using this technique and one using USM, and its incredible - even on my crappy lappy there is a real difference and much better on CRT.

Thanks Matey, much appreciated. (y)
 
A cool step by step, tutorial Colin, Thanks I will have to try that (y)
 
Its funny, I learnt this method about 3 years ago....but have never used it!!
I will try again!! :D
 
Cracking technique - just tried it on a snap of my recently cleaned (professionally I might add) car and it works a treat.

ooo that's weird - my post has been bunged in half-way down
 
Great! I tried this the other day but couldn't get it right. Your step-by-step has put me right. Good technique.
 
One problem with high pass sharpening (which is also true of USM) is that it can cause colour shifts as each channel is worked on separately. Where I have had this problem has been on high contrast boundaries between red and white which turn cyan.

To fix this, as step 2.5 after running the high pass filter I would desaturate the layer by going to Images > Adjust > Desaturate (or Shift-Command-U on the Mac).

I have only used this on occasions where there has been a colour shift problem, but it does not seems to have effected the sharpening so I think it would be okay to make it a general step, especially if recording the above to make a sharpening action.

Michael.
 
I've tried this out and it seems to work OK . I am rather new to PS, so could someone please explain to me as to what is meant by the last part that says 'Finally, flatten the image' as when I save ithe image that has had this form of sharpening, it mor than doubles the size of the file. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong please.
 
Lammie - flattening the image means that you combine the layers down to one single layer before you save it.
 
I love High Pass sharpening. I however do it a little different to you Hacker. The way I do it;

1. Duplicate the image layer.
2. Desaturate the new layer.
3. Apply high pass filter so that the detail comes through.
4. Set the blending mode of the sharpening layer to vivid light.
5. Apply a layer mask to the sharpening layer.
6. Invert the layer mask with ctrl+I.
7. Now brush in the areas you want sharpening with a white brush.
8. Change the blending mode to soft light for a subtler effect.
9. Flatten the image.

Doing it this way allows me to only sharpen areas with detail and not the entire image. :)
 
Thanks Hacker, very useful for us PP novices :)
 
Bump of a really old post for two reasons. First it's a handy technique and second it helped me out tonight with a shot that needed sharpening and contrast but no more noise :)
 
dod said:
Bump of a really old post for two reasons. First it's a handy technique and second it helped me out tonight with a shot that needed sharpening and contrast but no more noise :)
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Glad you bumped this, I didn't see it first time. Maybe it could be in the tutorial section. (y)
 
I'll get Robert onto it :)
 
tried this on a couple of shots last night with great results, thanks!
 
Sorry if this sounds a bit dumb.

I use photoshop 7.0

Could somebody bullet point the same steps for me ?
 
This might sound like a bit of a silly question, but would you apply this to every picture situation eg landscapes, portraits etc...? thanks
 
smithphoto said:
This might sound like a bit of a silly question, but would you apply this to every picture situation eg landscapes, portraits etc...? thanks
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I hardly use it at all, normally only where I've got images where I've been using ISO 3200 or 6400 and don't want any more noise in the image. But it's good to have :)
 
Thanks Dod, the reason why I am asking is because I have been trying out quite a few long exposure shots at iso100, some shots over 30secs, but still been getting noise after a while where the sensor has warmed up! Do you think this technique would help at all?
 
So simple indeed and what a difference it makes.

Thanx Hacker for the tutorial and dod for bumping this up.

Del.
 
smithphoto said:
! Do you think this technique would help at all?
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It might, try it and see :) Don't be afraid to try the different blending options either
 
For those of us still using Paint Shop Pro 9 I found this:

I use Paint Shop Pro version 9 and it does not have a high pass sharpen filter.
But it is possible to do it manually.
I dug this up from an old Corel newsgroup post.

High Pass Sharpen
1. Duplicate the image layer.
2. Duplicate the duplicate layer.
3. Set the opacity of the topmost layer to 50%.
4. Gaussian Blur the layer. Start with something like a Radius of 1.00. (This is where and how you define what "high" spatial frequencies you are going to "pass".)
5. Do Negative Image on the blurred layer. (Adjust, Color Balance, Negative Image)
6. Switch off the visibility of the original image layer.
7. Merge Visible the top two layers.
8. Run Histogram Stretch on the merged result layer to magnify the fine detail. (Adjust, Brightness and Contrast, Histogram Stretch)
9. Make your original layer visible again.
10. Set the blend mode of the topmost layer to Hard Light, Soft Light or Overlay depending on how aggressive you want the effect to be and adjust the layer opacity to control the sharpening effect.

To Script this (make these steps automatic with a click of a button):
Don't record step 10 in a script, just adjust it by hand. All the recorded steps 1 to 9 can be marked Silent in the script, but make step 4 interactive.

My Notes:
On the photo I tried it on, Effects, User Defined Filter, High pass Preset was similar to the above High Pass Sharpen when blend mode was set to Hard Light in step 10. Might not always be the case for all photos, but something to try.

High Pass Sharpen is used to get a certain photography effect, called the "Dave Hill Look" discussed at flickr strobist group. Instead of the Photoshop Vivid Light, I used Paint Shop Pro Soft Light layer blend mode.
 
This is a great tip.

What a friend also showed me to 'shine' particular photos (we did on some strobist cars) - was to use a very large value for the High Pass filter (say, 100-150 pixels)

Hard to explain, but similar in a way to 'Clarity' in LR, but different.
 
Thank's very much for the tutorial.I'm trying to teach myself Photoshop and this is a brilliant lesson...;)
 
Thanks for this, I just tried it on a picture of a wooden building and it really bought out the texture of the wood in a way that USM did not.
 
Just gave this a quick test - works really well, thanks for the tutorial. (y)(y)(y)
 
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