The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers part 35 docx

Luminosity Sharpening Step One: Open the RGB photo you want to sharpen, and apply an Unsharp Mask just like you normally would for this particular photo, let’s apply these settings—Amoun

321 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques

Continued

Coming up with your own settings:

If you want to experiment and come up with your own custom blend of sharpen-ing, I’ll give you some typical ranges for each adjustment so you can find your own sharpening “sweet spot.”

Amount

Typical ranges run anywhere from 50% to 150% This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule—just a typical range for adjusting the Amount, where going below 50%

won’t have enough effect, and going above 150% might get you into sharpen-ing trouble (dependsharpen-ing on how you set the Radius and Threshold) You’re fairly safe staying under 150% (In the example here, I reset my Radius and Threshold

to 1 and 4, respectively.)

Radius

Most of the time, you’ll use just 1 pixel, but you can go as high as (get ready)

2 pixels You saw one setting I gave you earlier for extreme situations, where you can take the Radius as high as 4 pixels

I once heard a tale of a man in Cincinnati who used 5, but I’m not sure I believe it

(Incidentally, Adobe allows you to raise the Radius amount to [get this] 250! If you ask me, anyone caught using 250 as their Radius setting should be incarcer-ated for a period not to exceed one year and a penalty not to exceed $2,500.)

Threshold

A pretty safe range for the Threshold

setting is anywhere from 3 to around 20

(3 being the most intense, 20 being much

more subtle I know, shouldn’t 3 be more

subtle and 20 be more intense? Don’t get

me started) If you really need to increase

the intensity of your sharpening, you can

lower the Threshold to 0, but keep a good

eye on what you’re doing (watch for noise

appearing in your photo)

The Final Image

For the final sharpened image you see

here, I used the Portrait sharpening

settings I gave earlier, and then I just

dragged the Amount slider to the right

(increasing the amount of sharpening),

until it looked right to me (I wound up

at around 85%, so I didn’t have to drag

too far) If you’re uncomfortable with

creating your own custom Unsharp Mask

settings, then start with this: pick a

starting point (one of the set of settings

I gave on the previous pages), and then

just move the Amount slider and

noth-ing else (so, don’t touch the Radius and

Threshold sliders) Try that for a while,

and it won’t be long before you’ll find a

situation where you ask yourself, “I wonder

if lowering the Threshold would help?” and

by then, you’ll be perfectly comfortable

with it

323 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques

Continued

This sharpening technique is my most often-used technique, and it has replaced the

Lab Sharpening technique I’ve used in the past, because it’s quicker and easier, and

pretty much accomplishes the same thing, which is helping to avoid the color halos

and color artifacts (spots and noise) that appear when you add a lot of sharpening

to a photo Because it helps avoid those halos and other color problems, it

allows you to apply more sharpening than you normally could get away with

Luminosity Sharpening

Step One:

Open the RGB photo you want to sharpen, and apply an Unsharp Mask just like you normally would (for this particular photo, let’s apply these settings—Amount: 125, Radius: 1, Threshold: 3, which is my recipe for nice, punchy sharpening)

Step Two:

Immediately after you’ve applied the sharpening, go under the Edit menu

and choose Fade Unsharp Mask (as

shown below)

TIP: Undo on a Slider

I think of Fade’s Opacity slider (seen here)

as “Undo on a slider,” because if you drag

it down to 0, it undoes your sharpening

If you leave it at 100%, it’s the full sharpen-ing If you lower the Opacity to 50%, you get half the sharpening applied, and so on

So, if I apply sharpening and I think it’s too much, rather than changing all the set-tings and trying again, I’ll just use the Fade Opacity slider to lower the amount a bit

I’ll also use Fade when I’ve applied some sharpening and it’s not enough I just apply the Unsharp Mask filter again, then lower the Opacity to 50% That way, I get 1½ sharpenings

Step Three:

So, at this point, you can ignore the

Opacity slider altogether, because the

only thing you’re going to do here is

change the Fade dialog’s Mode pop-up

menu from Normal to Luminosity (as

shown here) Now your sharpening is

applied to just the luminosity (detail)

areas of your photo, and not the color

areas, and by doing this it helps avoid

color halos and other pitfalls of

sharp-ening a color image

Step Four:

Click the OK button, and now your

sharpening is applied to just the

lumi-nosity of the image (which is very much

like the old Lab mode sharpening we

used to do, where you convert your

image to Lab color mode, then just

sharpen the Lightness channel, and

then convert back to RGB color) So,

should you apply this brand of

sharpen-ing to every digital camera photo you

take? I would In fact, I do, and since

I perform this function quite often,

I automated the process (as you’ll see

in the next step)

325 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques

Continued

Step Five:

Open a different RGB photo, and let’s

do the whole Luminosity sharpening

thing again, but this time, before you

start the process, go under the Window

menu and choose Actions to bring

up the Actions panel (seen here) The

Actions panel is a “steps recorder” that

records any set of repetitive steps and

lets you instantly play them back (apply

them to another photo) by simply

press-ing one button (you’ll totally dig this)

In the Actions panel, click on the Create

New Action icon at the bottom of the

panel (it looks just like the Create a New

Layer icon from the Layers panel, and it’s

shown circled in red here)

Step Six:

Clicking that icon brings up the New

Action dialog (shown here) The Name

field is automatically highlighted, so go

ahead and give this new action a name

(I named mine “Luminosity Sharpen.”

I know—how original!) Then, from the

Function Key pop-up menu, choose the

number of the Function key (F-key) on

your keyboard that you want to assign

to the action (this is the key you’ll hit

to make the action do its thing) I’ve

assigned mine F11, but you can choose

any open F-key that suits you (but

every-body knows F11 is, in fact, the coolest of

all F-keys—just ask anyone On a Mac,

you may need to turn off the OS

key-board shortcut for F11 first) You’ll notice

that the New Actions dialog has no OK

button Instead, there’s a Record button,

because once you exit this dialog,

Photo-shop starts recording your steps So go

ahead and click Record

Step Seven:

With Photoshop recording every move

you make, do the Luminosity sharpening

technique you learned on the previous

pages (apply your favorite Unsharp Mask

setting, then go under the Edit menu,

choose Fade Unsharp Mask, and when

the dialog appears, change the blend

mode to Luminosity and click OK Also,

if you generally like a second helping of

sharpening, you can run the filter again,

but don’t forget to Fade to Luminosity

right after you’re done) Now, in the

Actions panel, click on the Stop icon

at the bottom of the panel (it’s the

square icon, first from the left, shown

circled here in red)

Step Eight:

This stops the recording process If you

look in the Actions panel, you’ll see

all your steps recorded in the order

you did them Also, if you expand the

right-facing triangle beside each step

(as shown here), you’ll see more detail,

including individual settings, for the

steps it recorded You can see here that

I used the Amount: 120%, Radius: 1, and

Threshold: 3 Unsharp Mask settings

327 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques

Continued

Step Nine:

Now, open a different RGB photo and

let’s test your action to see that it works

(it’s important to test it now before

moving on to the next step) Press the

F-key you assigned to your action (you

chose F11, right? I knew it!) Photoshop

immediately applies the sharpening to

the Luminosity for you, and does it all

faster than you could ever do it

manu-ally, because it takes place behind the

scenes with no dialogs popping up

Step 10:

Now that you’ve tested your action, we’re

going to put that baby to work Of course,

you could open more photos and then

press F11 to have your action Luminosity

sharpen them one at a time, but there’s a

better way Once you’ve written an action,

you can apply that action to an entire

folder full of photos—and Photoshop

will totally automate the whole process

for you (it will literally open every photo

in the folder and apply your Luminosity

sharpening, and then save and close

every photo—all automatically How

cool is that?) This is called batch

pro-cessing, and here’s how it works: Go

under the File menu, under Automate,

and choose Batch to bring up the Batch

dialog (or you can choose Batch from

the Tools icon menu’s Photoshop

sub-menu within Mini Bridge—you have to

select the photos you want to batch

sharpen first) At the top of the dialog,

within the Play section, choose your

Luminosity Sharpen action from the

Action pop-up menu (if it’s not already

selected, as shown here)

Step 11:

In the Source section of the Batch

dialog, you tell Photoshop which folder

of photos you want to Luminosity

sharp-en So, choose Folder from the Source

pop-up menu (you can also choose

Bridge to run this batch action on

select-ed photos from Mini Bridge or Big Bridge,

or you can import photos from another

source, or choose to run it on images

that are already open in Photoshop)

Then, click on the Choose button A

standard Open dialog will appear (shown

here) so you can navigate to your folder

of photos you want to sharpen Once

you find that folder, click on it (as shown),

then click the Choose (PC: OK) button

Step 12:

In the Destination section of the Batch

dialog, you tell Photoshop where you

want to put these photos once the action

has done its thing If you choose Save and

Close from the Destination pop-up menu

(as shown here), Photoshop will save the

images in the same folder they’re in If

you select Folder from the Destination

pop-up menu, Photoshop will place your

Luminosity-sharpened photos into a

total-ly different folder To do this, click on the

Choose button in the Destination section,

navigate to your target folder (or create a

new one), and click Choose (PC: OK)

329 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques

Step 13:

If you do choose to move them to a new

folder, you can automatically rename

your photos in the process In short,

here’s how the file naming works: In the

first field within the File Naming section,

you type the basic name you want all

the files to have In the other fields, you

can choose (from a pop-up menu) the

automatic numbering scheme to use

(adding a 1-digit number, 2-digit number,

etc., and if you choose this, there’s a field

near the bottom where you can choose

which number to start with) You can

also choose to add the appropriate file

extension (JPG, TIFF, etc.) in upper- or

lowercase to the end of the new name

At the bottom of the dialog, there’s a row

of checkboxes for choosing compatibility

with other operating systems I generally

turn all of these on, because ya never

know When you’re finally done in the

Batch dialog, click OK and Photo shop

will automatically Luminosity sharpen,

rename, and save all your photos in a

new folder for you Nice!

Step One:

Start by choosing the Sharpen tool from

the Toolbox (it’s found nested beneath

the Blur tool, as seen here) Once you’ve

got the tool, go up to the Options Bar

and make sure the Protect Detail

check-box (shown circled here in red) is turned

on (this is the checkbox that makes all

the difference, as it turns on the new

CS5 advanced sharpening algorithm for

this tool)

Step Two:

I usually duplicate the Background layer

at this point (by pressing Command-J

[PC: Ctrl-J]) and apply the sharpening

to this duplicate layer That way, if I think

the sharpening looks too intense, I can

just lower the amount of it by lowering

the opacity of this layer I also usually

zoom in (by pressing Command-+ [plus

sign; PC: Ctrl-+] on a detail area (like

her belt), so I can really see the effects of

the sharpening clearly (another benefit

of applying the sharpening to a duplicate

layer is that you can quickly see a before/

after of all the sharpening by showing/

hiding the layer)

Back in Photoshop CS4, Adobe updated a few tools that really needed some serious updating (like the Dodge and Burn tools) by rewriting the underlying logic of each, and now not only are they usable (for perhaps the first time ever), but they’re actually great In CS5, Adobe went back and fixed another tool—the Sharpen tool—taking it from its previous role as a “noise generator/pixel destroyer” to what Adobe Product Manager Bryan Hughes has called “… the most advanced sharpening in any of our products.” Here’s how it works:

Using CS5’s Updated Sharpen Tool