Adobe CS - what is the best sharpening technique?

[cmanaginged]

Please forgive me if this has been asked a thousand times before, but I just joined this forum and couldn't pull up anything on a search.

I've been told that unsharp mask is a crude way of sharpening images. Is there any other effective technique in Photoshop CS? I would really appreciate it because I find that my 300D is not very sharp out of the box. Its like there is a film of haze of some sort on the pictures that needs a lift.

Thanks in advance!

[ukexpat]

Please forgive me if this has been asked a thousand times before, but I just joined this forum and couldn't pull up anything on a search.

I've been told that unsharp mask is a crude way of sharpening images. Is there any other effective technique in Photoshop CS? I would really appreciate it because I find that my 300D is not very sharp out of the box. Its like there is a film of haze of some sort on the pictures that needs a lift.

Thanks in advance!

Are you shooting in RAW or JPEG? If the latter, I would use the sharpness settings in the camera as every time you edit and save a JPEG some image info is lost. If you shoot RAW, unsharp mask is the best way to do it from within PS CS (without buying a sharpening plug-in). I have just treated myself to PS CS2 and its new Smart Sharpen filter works really well -- better than USM IMHO.

[ckimmerle]

There are a lot of myths about sharpening, but EVERY sharpening technique as well as EVERY third party software package, works the same basic way.....by increasing contrast at the boundaries between light and dark areas. It's that simple.

USM is actually a very good sharpening tool for the most part, but I think most pros prefer the edge sharpen or high-pass methods. I used to prefer hight-pass, but have become an edge sharpen convert since it seems to give good results for a greater range of images. There are many variations on these techniques so do a Google search to find the one that works best for you. Here's one site to get you started:

click here

As for your digital images not being sharp, that's normal. To reduce moire patterns and color artifacting, camera manufacturers add a filter to the digital sensor to slightly blur the image. It's normal.

Chuck

[neovolatile]

I use the Fred Miranda Intellisharpen II plug-in Automation for Photoshop
http://www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/IS

It is incredibly easy, you tell it whether you are at a low or high ISO and how much of a halo you are willing to live with and then let it rip. It works on 8 or 16 bit images, tiffs or jpgs.

I would advise let sharpening be the very last thing you do before you print the file. Get the colors right and smooth, reduce or enlarge the size and then sharpen the image.

Lots of advice out there, of course.

Best of luck and keep asking questions,
Ellsworth Weaver
http://www.pbase.com/neovolatile

[scatts]

I also use a Fred Miranda plug in (D70 CSPro) most of the time although I find it is quite harsh on most settings. I use settings, 1 - very low or 2- low most often and occasionally 3- normal. This is used probably 75% of the time and unsharp mask the rest. If you look at the settings it uses they are pretty strong compared to suggested settings for unsharp mask but I think it's doing it slightly differently (finding some edges first and then sharpening the rest) which may be why they seem high. I'm not really smart enough to say much more than that.

There is a lot more information out there on the web and in books.

[road_runner]

I have tried all of these methods, but since I have found out about the High Pass Filter application I use it most of the time. Sometimes I use the Unsharp Filter with the view at 100%. Actually I use 100% view for all sharpening and for detailed work.

Here is a link to the High Pass Method; it is easy, quick and quite noticeable.

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototip ... oshop.html

Have fun!