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Author Topic: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques  (Read 6974 times)

laraaustin

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #20 on: June 23, 2015, 06:10:13 am »

 Lightroom sharpening

Jim Sanderson

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #21 on: June 27, 2015, 11:59:47 am »

I use a variety of techniques depending on the subject matter of the photo.  I use all of the ones mentioned above for various purposes.  One that is not mentioned is frequency separation sharpening.  I use it quite a bit when I have a shot with a lot of high frequency detail.  High Pass filter with a density mask utilizing either the green channel or the red channel as a base is another I use often.

Jim
« Last Edit: June 27, 2015, 12:28:12 pm by Jim Sanderson »
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bjanes

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #22 on: June 27, 2015, 12:09:12 pm »

I use a variety of techniques depending on the subject matter of the photo.  I use all of the ones mentioned above for various purposes.  One that is not mentioned is frequency separation sharpening.  I use it quite a bit when I have a shot with a lot of high frequency detail.  High Pass with either the green channel or the red channel is another I use often.

Jim

Jim,

Could you elaborate a bit in how you implement frequency separation sharpening? Topaz plugins or other?

Thanks,

Bill

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PeterAit

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #23 on: June 27, 2015, 12:45:31 pm »

Try Focus Magic. It is, in theory, for fixing out-of-focus and lens shake issues (which it does well), but it also works wonders on many other images. I almost never use PK Sharpener anymore, it's just not as good. FM is a PS filter and also (I believe) a stand-alone.
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Jim Sanderson

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #24 on: June 27, 2015, 12:46:19 pm »

Jim,

Could you elaborate a bit in how you implement frequency separation sharpening? Topaz plugins or other?

Thanks,

Bill

Bill,

I have a number of separation actions that I use.  Cloning/retouching is one application of frequency separation, sharpening another.  I use a three layer action I made, with the tutelage of others, for sharpening globally.  A different action for spot sharpening.  There are a number of resources on the web now with regard to frequency sharpening.  There was an interesting article I read a few years back at TwiceBacked Photography...Sean's Blog that explained how it works.  Not sure if it's still there.

Jim
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #25 on: June 27, 2015, 02:20:24 pm »

Could you elaborate a bit in how you implement frequency separation sharpening? Topaz plugins or other?

It's not really sharpening, but contrast enhancement. The common implementation in Photoshop requires creating a layer with a high-pass filtered version of the target layer and is then is blended with Overlay, Soft light, or Linear light blending mode. Variations use (the difference between)several High Pass layers with different radii to limit the contrast enhancement to a smaller range. They all risk color shifts and halos, unlike e.g. Topaz Detail.

Cheers,
Bart
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== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==

Jim Sanderson

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Re: Best creative sharpening tools & techniques
« Reply #26 on: June 27, 2015, 02:55:35 pm »

It's not really sharpening, but contrast enhancement. The common implementation in Photoshop requires creating a layer with a high-pass filtered version of the target layer and is then is blended with Overlay, Soft light, or Linear light blending mode. Variations use (the difference between)several High Pass layers with different radii to limit the contrast enhancement to a smaller range. They all risk color shifts and halos, unlike e.g. Topaz Detail.

Cheers,
Bart
[/quote

I do things a bit differently and avoid the problems you mention. I don't use the blending modes you mention or high pass filters with different or any radii. I do use Gaussian blur as a low pass filter on a layer. I like Topaz, but I also like edge contrast enhancement sharpening in a variety of flavors dependent on, as always, the picture content.

Jim
« Last Edit: June 28, 2015, 12:25:20 am by Jim Sanderson »
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