Sharpening w/out PH7

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Grant

P.S. I would attach a picture but I do not konw how to attach a picture in this forum. Help?

The "Unsharp Mask" filter is what you use to sharpen. I'm not sure but I'd be surprised if Elements doesn't have it. Does Elements have a Filters menu? Look there under sharpen. Otherwise search in Help under unsharp mask.

Fred's actions just automate some of the more sophisticated uses of the filter.

Nill

Grant Hill said:

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own
Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements
you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy
to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Click to expand...

In elements you can still use USM, it is located under the filter menu.

As far as inserting photos into posts, you must first get the image uploaded on the net, they you can simply insert the URL of the image into the post.
--
--
Jeffrey Lazo
-Check out my D60 Galleries-
http://homepage.mac.com/lazoj
-Newbie Lens Information/Prices -
http://homepage.mac.com/lazoj/lenses/lenses.html
Don't use your local shops as 'Internet show-rooms'

I appreciate your helping me very much. It is under the filter menu. I have only have had this program for a year and a half. Man am I embarassed. A little lazy too.

Thanks again,

Grant

Jeffrey Lazo said:

In elements you can still use USM, it is located under the filter
menu.

As far as inserting photos into posts, you must first get the image
uploaded on the net, they you can simply insert the URL of the
image into the post.
--
--
Jeffrey Lazo
-Check out my D60 Galleries-
http://homepage.mac.com/lazoj
-Newbie Lens Information/Prices -
http://homepage.mac.com/lazoj/lenses/lenses.html
Don't use your local shops as 'Internet show-rooms'

Click to expand...

Grant Hill said:

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own
Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements
you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy
to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Grant

P.S. I would attach a picture but I do not konw how to attach a
picture in this forum. Help?

Click to expand...

Grant, I'm not meaning to be facetious, but just use USM (unsharp mask) yourself on the images. I don't use an action to sharpen mine--even large batches of image files. There are a lot of tutorials about sharpening that you can adapt to Elements--here is one tutorial that may be helpful to you.
http://www.arraich.com/ps_tips_shrpn1.htm

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic/galleries
B/W lover, but color is seducing me

I will check out the link. I trust it will help me learn more of the post processing procedure.

Thanks again,

Grant

Diane B said:

Grant Hill said:

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own
Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements
you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy
to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Grant

P.S. I would attach a picture but I do not konw how to attach a
picture in this forum. Help?

Click to expand...

Grant, I'm not meaning to be facetious, but just use USM (unsharp
mask) yourself on the images. I don't use an action to sharpen
mine--even large batches of image files. There are a lot of
tutorials about sharpening that you can adapt to Elements--here is
one tutorial that may be helpful to you.
http://www.arraich.com/ps_tips_shrpn1.htm

--
Diane B
http://www.pbase.com/picnic/galleries
B/W lover, but color is seducing me

Click to expand...

There are pleanty of tutorials on the use of Unsharp mask, here are a few more:
http://www.bythom.com/sharpening.htm
http://www.scantips.com/simple6.html
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11242.html?cprose=I39
There are many others.

BUT, USM sharpens everything to the same degree, and one of the advantages of the more complex actions is that you have some degree of control over what gets sharpened. In general one wants to sharpen the detail but leave the smooth areas untouched, or you will increase noise (for example in the sky) with aggressive use of USM. There is an option for users of Elements that is very much like the Miranda sharpening action:
http://www.ultrasharpen.com/

This is similar to other sharpening actions in that it will selectively sharpen detail. there is a FREE version which you can download and try. However, one cannot adjust the set points with the free version so if you like it the features and want to adjust things its $15 for the email version or $20 with a CD that contains video instruction. I use it on most images, works quite well. Its just about the only commercial "action" that works with Elements.
Mike K

Grant Hill said:

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own
Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements
you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy
to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Grant

P.S. I would attach a picture but I do not konw how to attach a
picture in this forum. Help?

Click to expand...

I will give the demo a try.

Thanks again,

Grant

Mike K said:

BUT, USM sharpens everything to the same degree, and one of the
advantages of the more complex actions is that you have some degree
of control over what gets sharpened. In general one wants to
sharpen the detail but leave the smooth areas untouched, or you
will increase noise (for example in the sky) with aggressive use of
USM. There is an option for users of Elements that is very much
like the Miranda sharpening action:
http://www.ultrasharpen.com/
This is similar to other sharpening actions in that it will
selectively sharpen detail. there is a FREE version which you can
download and try. However, one cannot adjust the set points with
the free version so if you like it the features and want to adjust
things its $15 for the email version or $20 with a CD that contains
video instruction. I use it on most images, works quite well. Its
just about the only commercial "action" that works with Elements.
Mike K

Grant Hill said:

I am a rookie and I need to sharpen some photo's. I do not own
Photoshop 6 or 7 but do own Elements. I understand with Elements
you cannot use "actions" like Fred Miranda sells so what is a guy
to do?

Is there an inexpensive solution until I can afford PS 7?

Grant

P.S. I would attach a picture but I do not konw how to attach a
picture in this forum. Help?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Seach for SharpControl on this forum (or poster Vtie) and you'll find a link to this free tool. It does seem to do a decent job, much better than plain USM. I'm sticking to my PS 7 actions, however. The true power of sharpening is in the masks and how they can be used to sharpen only selectively, without halos etc. (that's why you need PS7 ... creating a proper mask using layers/channels takes 10 steps easily, and you won't do that for 100 images without a recorded action). SharpControl does have some parameters to avoid halos as well

--
Jouko
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/ruusnak/selected/index.htm