Focus on Photos – Sharpen!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Hi everyone!  Beckie here to bring you more Focus on Photos!  This time we’re going to look at sharpening!!

I’ll admit that I’m pretty new to using sharpening.  I’ve been doing lots of research on-line to learn the various methods and intensity of sharpening, and one thing that I immediately realized is that everyone seems to have a personal preference.  That is, everyone seems to adopt their own method and way of fiddling with the settings to achieve something they are pleased with.  I know I say this a lot – but really – I highly recommend that you search on-line to read about sharpening in more detail to learn how to develop a method that is perfect for you!

What I do want to share with you is the basics of how to sharpen, as well as how to incorporate sharpening into your workflow for both photo editing and scrapbooking!  Ready?  Let’s get started!!

Photo Editing

In past posts we’ve looked at the basics of how to use ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) to make basic exposure and white balance adjustments to your photos.  Today we’re going to follow that workflow into Photoshop (Elements or CS) and apply sharpening!

First of all, understand that its usually good to sharpen photos any time you intend to share them on the web.  So much detail is lost in the process of reducing files down to be shared on-line that a quick sharpen can make a really dramatic improvement to what others see on-line.  However, it is equally important to understand that what looks good on-line is NOT necessarily what will look good printed out!  Luckily you’ll be creating separate web and print versions, so you can optimize each file separately.

Let’s get started!…Here’s an example of a photo I took earlier with my new macro lens (new to me, I bought it used, LOL!).  I’ve had sooooo much fun playing with it! Of course, my husband keeps asking me what I plan to do with all these pictures of leaves and bugs – I tell him to leave me alone because I’m an artiste!! :)

This is what the photo looks like after getting a slight bump in exposure in ACR:

Shot with my 60mm f2.8 macro lens at ISO200,1/250, f4

Here’s the same photo, but shown at a 100% close-up of a portion of the photo:

 

Looks pretty good, right?  My traditional workflow would have ended here :)  But now let’s look at what a little bit of sharpening can do to this image!

• Open your image in photoshop
• re-size your image for the desired purpose.  This is very important, as re-sizing after you sharpen will reduce the effectiveness of the sharpening.  To re-size:
  • Image–>Image Size and then specify the pixel size or inches you desire.
  • For photos, you may prefer to use the Crop tool to crop and re-size at the same time.
  • With both methods, be sure to keep resolution at 300 pixels/inch if you intend to print.  For web, set it to 72 pixels/inch.
• Ok, now that you’ve re-sized, right-click on the image in your layers palette to create a duplicate layer {you should now have two identical layers of your original photo).
• Be sure you’re viewing the image at 100% (go to View –> Actual Pixel Size).
• With the new layer selected, go to Filter –> Sharpen –> Unsharp Mask.  You’ll see this dialog box:

You’ll need to learn to play with the Amount and Radius values.  Here are two examples to illustrate the different results.  The first example is set to 150%, 2.0, 0.  You’ll just have to trust me – but this is too sharpened to print.  When I view this image on my system, I can see pixelation and “graininess” (is that even a word??) that have actually degraded the quality of my image.  Ironically, this is also a great way to illustrate my point that things look different optimized for web and print, because you might in your mind be thinking “what does she mean?? this looks great!!”  :)   Viewed on my system directly, the second image is actually just right to print.

Too sharp!  150%, 2.0, 0

Just Right! 100%, 1, 0

Scrapbooking

So how can you use sharpening with scrapbooking?  well, the same way!  You can try to sharpen the files you save for print and web, too! Let’s look at an example:

The image on the left is what the layout looks like after it has been reduced to web size, but no sharpening applied.  The image on the right was sharpened after it was re-sized for web.   (I used 80%, 1.0, 0).  You can see a significant difference on the title and the button!  In the past I haven’t actually sharpened my layouts for web, but seeing the difference makes me wish I had  :)

I just wanted to throw in one more photo, it might just be my most favorite photo ever of my sweet boy :)  I was taking pics of him in his cowboy hat and he was SUPER cute, smiling and sitting still for me.  Then he says “wait, mommy! one more!” and he ran back in the house, grabbed his blankie, and came back out and posed just like this:

Shot with 85mm 1.8 lens at ISO125, 1/160, f4.5

*sigh*….he’s just so darn cute.  You’ll see this photo on a scrapbook page eventually, but I just had to share.  And I did sharpen this, too!  110%, 1.0, 0.

ok, that wraps it up for today!!  hope you all give sharpening a try on your next project!  :)

BeckiePhotography, Uncategorized 16 Comments