I am looking to switch to using FocusMagic for my input sharpening in my Photoshop workflow and wonder the best way of integrating it?
Basically I RAW process in LR and then move the image into PS for final adjustments - generally a number of layer adjustments with masks. I understand the best time to apply FocusMagic is after all other adjustments have been made.
Hi Phil,
Not necessarily. In principle, one would
start with Capture sharpening (if necessary preceded by noise reduction if there is a lot of it). This allows the deconvolution to consider the tonal differences as they were shot (and blurred by the capture process). Strictly, it also works best on linear gamma data, but the algorithm could do an intermediate gamma linearization round trip under-the-hood (FocusMagic seems to to things right, including reducing the risk of amplifying noise too much). Once you start introducing all sorts of tonal adjustments, the original capture relationships between tones gets lost, which can be good for viewing, but troublesome for deconvolution sharpening (either shadows or highlights may develop halos at edge transitions).
There can be scenarios where it is possible to do good Capture sharpening as a final step, but then it is more commonly combined with other things like resampling, distortion corrections, or plain resizing. I usually
start my Photoshop processing (running just one action to do all the work) with the creation of a duplicate of Background layer, and put it in Luminosity blending mode, with initial Blend-if layer settings, like shown below, and Capture sharpen that layer.
This allows to control the opacity of the sharpening, if necessary locally by masking (e.g. mask out smooth sky areas), and adjust the blend-if settings to subject/taste. It also allows to switch off the sharpening before downsampling, where it can only create more aliasing issues that we don't need.
Additional processing can be done by just adding adjustment layers, which will then incorporate the sharpened detail, and e.g. allows to avoid clipping or help with easier edge selections or more accurate luminosity masks.
Given I have a number of layers - which I don't want to flatten in case I go back to tweak later - how do I handle these layers, so FocusMagic can work on the fully adjusted image?
If you do want to add the Capture sharpening after all other adjustments, just create a copy of the merged visible layers, and sharpen that. I use the Alt (on Windows, Option on a Mac) key and then select merge visible layers from the Layers menu (or Alt+Shift+Ctrl+E) to create a 'Stamp Visible' layer. That leaves the other layers intact, and just creates a new layer with a cumulative summary of all layers, ready to add e.g. sharpening (and optionally add a mask). It's quick enough to redo if you alter any of the other layers (first save any masking you may have applied to that sharpening layer).
Cheers,
Bart
