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Never use USM...

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iRon said:
cpr1954 said:
easy to do..

with the wand.. use your right mouse click to add ..

hope this helps

cheers
iRon said:
I want to sharpen everything but the face(s).
Mike Salzlechner said:
Always use some sort of smarft sharpen. What you want is to sharpen
edges only. So first use edge detection techniques and then use
that as a mask to sharpen.

The reverse works for cleanup of noise also btw.

--
Michael Salzlechner
StarZen Digital Imaging
http://www.starzen.com/imaging

photos at http://www.salzlechner.com/photo
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
--
CANON 10D - S-30 - A-1 film
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
--
Michael Salzlechner
StarZen Digital Imaging
http://www.starzen.com/imaging

photos at http://www.salzlechner.com/photo
 
You can see on page 4 that the global sharpening resulted in a lot of useless noise in the sky... I personally don't like that...

Bas
Mathias Vejerslev said:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12189.html?origin=story

Then read the rest of Frasers Out of Gamut series.

Your photographs will improve, and your Photoshop skills will hit
the roof, and make your spous unhappy.

Mathias
Pekka Saarinen said:
bas thijssen said:
I was at a Photoshop-seminar some days ago and the guy that was
there from Adobe had a very usefull tip. Never use USM on an entire
image. You not only sharpen the things you want to, but also the
noise that you DON'T want to. Instead use for example the
IntelliSharpen action from FredMiranda. it makes masks and only
sharpen the things you want to. And when you use the ARC from
adobe, set Sharpen and Smoothnes to 0 and do everything in
Photoshop.
Click to expand...
Fully masked sharpening can look also very unnatural - there is a
lot of detail in surfaces and noise is not always just noise.
Masked sharpening (originally mentioned 3/2001 in
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12189.html?origin=story
and popularized and commercialized by many) is good for high ISO
shots when you really need to avoid getting noise up but
basically you get better look by sharpening "overall" and perhaps
doing NR afterwards - people are just too afraid of noise to
realize that.
Mathias Vejerslev said:
In love with my D60
Click to expand...
Ok, as long as you don't start taking it out to dinner.

--
Pekka
http://photography-on-the.net
Click to expand...
--
CP995 Macro gallery:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/
Digital Deluxe Toolbox - Photoshop Actions for digital photographers:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/
Click to expand...
--
In love with my D60
 
bas thijssen said:
I was at a Photoshop-seminar some days ago and the guy that was
there from Adobe had a very usefull tip. Never use USM on an entire
image. You not only sharpen the things you want to, but also the
noise that you DON'T want to. Instead use for example the
IntelliSharpen action from FredMiranda. it makes masks and only
sharpen the things you want to. And when you use the ARC from
adobe, set Sharpen and Smoothnes to 0 and do everything in
Photoshop.

greetings
Bas
--
In love with my D60
Click to expand...
Definitely smart sharpening is better for "most" images, but there are exceptions. In general, backgrounds which display sky, clouds, etc', don't benefit from sharpening and most of the intelligent actions use layers and density masks, etc., to avoid sharpening areas which won't benefit.

On the other hand, some types of landscape shots benefit from all over judicious use of USM depending on the final disposition (web or print). The important thing to come away with when discussing sharpening techniques is that one should carefully design the sharpening for the subject. In some cases, I've found it necessary to oversharpen considerably, and manually remove the sharpening halo by cloning sky or background around the subject. The halo, contrary to what most believe, is not just the light around the outside perimeter of a subject, but also the "dark" outline on the "inside" of the edges. Sometimes this outline on the inside can be useful, and there is no good way to get it without either using edge sharpening or overall USM, then removing the outside "halo."

In general, I would agree that using a smart algorithm or action (I use Ultra Sharpen Pro) is usually superior to overall USM, but there are cases where USM works better, and other cases where it can be used with additional post processing to produce a result otherwise not possible.

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
 
Personally, I use many different sharpening methods, and although for many years, I swore by regular USM, over the past few years, I´ve been experimenting more and more with different methods.

Regular USM is not bad.

Lin, if you just want to get rid of the white halo, why not Fade the USM to Darken or Multiply? You can also fade to Luminosity to avoid sharpening colour noise or -artifacts.

Mathias
Lin Evans said:
bas thijssen said:
I was at a Photoshop-seminar some days ago and the guy that was
there from Adobe had a very usefull tip. Never use USM on an entire
image. You not only sharpen the things you want to, but also the
noise that you DON'T want to. Instead use for example the
IntelliSharpen action from FredMiranda. it makes masks and only
sharpen the things you want to. And when you use the ARC from
adobe, set Sharpen and Smoothnes to 0 and do everything in
Photoshop.

greetings
Bas
--
In love with my D60
Click to expand...
Definitely smart sharpening is better for "most" images, but there
are exceptions. In general, backgrounds which display sky, clouds,
etc', don't benefit from sharpening and most of the intelligent
actions use layers and density masks, etc., to avoid sharpening
areas which won't benefit.

On the other hand, some types of landscape shots benefit from all
over judicious use of USM depending on the final disposition (web
or print). The important thing to come away with when discussing
sharpening techniques is that one should carefully design the
sharpening for the subject. In some cases, I've found it necessary
to oversharpen considerably, and manually remove the sharpening
halo by cloning sky or background around the subject. The halo,
contrary to what most believe, is not just the light around the
outside perimeter of a subject, but also the "dark" outline on the
"inside" of the edges. Sometimes this outline on the inside can be
useful, and there is no good way to get it without either using
edge sharpening or overall USM, then removing the outside "halo."

In general, I would agree that using a smart algorithm or action (I
use Ultra Sharpen Pro) is usually superior to overall USM, but
there are cases where USM works better, and other cases where it
can be used with additional post processing to produce a result
otherwise not possible.

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
Click to expand...
--
CP995 Macro gallery:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/
Digital Deluxe Toolbox - Photoshop Actions for digital photographers:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/
 
There are many ways to do this.

I´d duplicate my layer, do an overall sharpening, then add a Layer> Layer Mask, then paint with a black paintbrush over areas I don´t want to effect. This method is both non-destructive, and allows for eternal tweaking and undo, if saved with a PSD file.

Mathias
iRon said:
I want to sharpen everything but the face(s).
Mike Salzlechner said:
Always use some sort of smarft sharpen. What you want is to sharpen
edges only. So first use edge detection techniques and then use
that as a mask to sharpen.

The reverse works for cleanup of noise also btw.

--
Michael Salzlechner
StarZen Digital Imaging
http://www.starzen.com/imaging

photos at http://www.salzlechner.com/photo
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
--
CP995 Macro gallery:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/
Digital Deluxe Toolbox - Photoshop Actions for digital photographers:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/
 
I have never had much luck with masking and edge-sharpening techniques. They too often produce dark edge-lines I don't like.

I prefer the simple approach, with a low-radius USM

http://www.lonestardigital.com/photoshop_quicktips.htm#clean_sharpening

Sharpening of noise is not usually a problem, but if it is I just use the PS History Brush with a large brush to undo the sharpening where it's not needed.

Cheers

--
Ian S
'The road to Hell is paved with good intentions'
http://www.rainpalm.com
http://www.mekongpicturehouse.com
 
Mathias Vejerslev said:
Personally, I use many different sharpening methods, and although
for many years, I swore by regular USM, over the past few years,
I´ve been experimenting more and more with different methods.

Regular USM is not bad.

Lin, if you just want to get rid of the white halo, why not Fade
the USM to Darken or Multiply? You can also fade to Luminosity to
avoid sharpening colour noise or -artifacts.

Mathias
Click to expand...
Hi Mathias,

Sometimes I do fade the USM to Darken - but lots depends on the effect desired. Fade to Darken affects the entire image, and sometimes I want the additional brightness and contrast on the areas within the boundaries of the subject border, especially for wildlife. It's sometimes necessary to experiment to get the best overall effect and often it takes several approaches on the same image. Sometimes I just sharpen the Luminosity channel and leave the colors alone, sometimes the entire image and manually remove halo's, especially when shooting archetecture where nearly all the halo's are against a uniform sky color. Sometimes I sharpen everything including the sky, quick or density mask the sky and apply a short radius gaussian blur then clone the blur area against the building edges to get extremely sharp delineation.

Obviously there are many approaches and sometimes completely useful but alternative approaches ending in similar or same results. This is one reason why any "canned" approach such as Ultra Sharpen Pro or Fred's smart sharpening actions can fail under certain circumstances. I think the more of it one does, the better the judgment becomes about what is likely to work or not for a particular image.

Best regards,

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
 
David Koetzle said:
Hi John, "newbie" Dave here :-) I would love a "Newbie" forum, as
long as you 'old timers' will still visit us now and again and help
us out ;-) In fact, I need your help now. What is "AA" ... other
than batteries?

Thanks!!

Kindest Regards,
David
Click to expand...
Certainly David. I'm the first also interested in learning.

AA is in fact anti-aliasing. All digital sensors except Foveon have an anti-aliasing filter in front. That does blur the image slightly. That's why sharpening should be done in 2 steps - a small mild step at conversion time and a final sharpening step prior to printing. There's lots of articles, message threads, etc. on this everywhere.

John
David Lee139781 said:
David Lee139781 said:
These fellows are learning... and BTW the blanket statement that
started this thread forgets the need to undo AA in DSLRs too...

The suggestion to have a newbies forum is truer than ever.

John
David Lee139781 said:
With a camera like the 10D, you won´t be enhancing any noise at all
if you set threshold carefully, and shoot at ISO100.

Mathias
--
CP995 Macro gallery:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/
Digital Deluxe Toolbox - Photoshop Actions for digital photographers:
http://www.2morrow.dk/75ppi/coolpix/actions/
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ian S said:
I have never had much luck with masking and edge-sharpening
techniques. They too often produce dark edge-lines I don't like.

I prefer the simple approach, with a low-radius USM

http://www.lonestardigital.com/photoshop_quicktips.htm#clean_sharpening

Sharpening of noise is not usually a problem, but if it is I just
use the PS History Brush with a large brush to undo the sharpening
where it's not needed.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Agree. This method has been my standard approach to sharpening. I also do it on a duped background layer and then adjust layer opacity or use a layer mask to control both the amount and distribution of sharpening. NEVER sharpen the background - always use a layer.
 
Very well said.

John
Pekka Saarinen said:
bas thijssen said:
I was at a Photoshop-seminar some days ago and the guy that was
there from Adobe had a very usefull tip. Never use USM on an entire
image. You not only sharpen the things you want to, but also the
noise that you DON'T want to. Instead use for example the
IntelliSharpen action from FredMiranda. it makes masks and only
sharpen the things you want to. And when you use the ARC from
adobe, set Sharpen and Smoothnes to 0 and do everything in
Photoshop.
Click to expand...
Fully masked sharpening can look also very unnatural - there is a
lot of detail in surfaces and noise is not always just noise.
Masked sharpening (originally mentioned 3/2001 in
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12189.html?origin=story
and popularized and commercialized by many) is good for high ISO
shots when you really need to avoid getting noise up but
basically you get better look by sharpening "overall" and perhaps
doing NR afterwards - people are just too afraid of noise to
realize that.
Pekka Saarinen said:
In love with my D60
Click to expand...
Ok, as long as you don't start taking it out to dinner.

--
Pekka
http://photography-on-the.net
Click to expand...
 
John Davis said:
David Koetzle said:
Hi John, "newbie" Dave here :-) I would love a "Newbie" forum, as
long as you 'old timers' will still visit us now and again and help
us out ;-) In fact, I need your help now. What is "AA" ... other
than batteries?

Thanks!!

Kindest Regards,
David
Click to expand...
Certainly David. I'm the first also interested in learning.

AA is in fact anti-aliasing. All digital sensors except Foveon have
an anti-aliasing filter in front. .............(snip) >
John
Click to expand...
The Kodak 14n doesn't use an anti-aliasing filter at all, and all previous Kodak pro cameras built on Nikon frames had "optional" removable anti-aliasing filters. I rarely use one with my DCS-760.

Lin

--
http://208.56.82.71
 
Lin, There is a technique to do what you want without the pain of removing the halo. Do a copy of the layer. Sharpen it to where you have the effect you want in the dark (light) halo. Then make the layer a Darken (Lighten) layer. For a Darken layer, the final result will be the lesser of the two layers. This leaves only the dark halo. The Lighten layer does the opposite. Another method that I do with light halo in skys immediately above the horizon. I select the sky with a feather of 1 or 2 pixels. I then expand the selection just until the contour includes the halo and maybe a pixel or so of the land. An application of noise, median, radius=1 should remove the halo. If you want to be a bit more restrictive. Save the original selection before you expand it. After expansion, subtract the original selection from the expanded one and you should be left with a narrow selection surrounding the halo. Median works on this. Hope this helps. Find edges can also be used to get a limited selection. Leon
Member said:
In some cases, I've found it necessary
to oversharpen considerably, and manually remove the sharpening
halo by cloning sky or background around the subject. The halo,
contrary to what most believe, is not just the light around the
outside perimeter of a subject, but also the "dark" outline on the
"inside" of the edges. Sometimes this outline on the inside can be
useful, and there is no good way to get it without either using
edge sharpening or overall USM, then removing the outside "halo."

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
Click to expand...
 
Leon Wittwer said:
Lin, There is a technique to do what you want without the pain of
removing the halo. Do a copy of the layer. Sharpen it to where
you have the effect you want in the dark (light) halo. Then make
the layer a Darken (Lighten) layer. For a Darken layer, the final
result will be the lesser of the two layers. This leaves only the
dark halo. The Lighten layer does the opposite. Another method
that I do with light halo in skys immediately above the horizon. I
select the sky with a feather of 1 or 2 pixels. I then expand the
selection just until the contour includes the halo and maybe a
pixel or so of the land. An application of noise, median, radius=1
should remove the halo. If you want to be a bit more restrictive.
Save the original selection before you expand it. After expansion,
subtract the original selection from the expanded one and you
should be left with a narrow selection surrounding the halo.
Median works on this. Hope this helps. Find edges can also be used
to get a limited selection. Leon
Click to expand...
Hi Leon,
Thanks much - I'll give that a try, it sounds like a very reasonable approach.

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
 
Do two stages in seperate layer masks:

1. sharpen everything, using either luminosity channel or edge sharpening, depending on the image. Mask out the face (except eyes, lips, jewelry).

2. Select the face, jump to new layer and sharpen new layer on red channel only. This will prevent any pores/belishes from being sharpened.

Cheers,
Simon
iRon said:
I want to sharpen everything but the face(s).
Mike Salzlechner said:
Always use some sort of smarft sharpen. What you want is to sharpen
edges only. So first use edge detection techniques and then use
that as a mask to sharpen.

The reverse works for cleanup of noise also btw.

--
Michael Salzlechner
StarZen Digital Imaging
http://www.starzen.com/imaging

photos at http://www.salzlechner.com/photo
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
 
...to me that people spend $$ on sharpening actions when layer maksing/edge masking actions are fairly simple to set up. Or if you're not inclined, there's some great free ones out there.
 
Simonize said:
1. sharpen everything, using either luminosity channel or edge
sharpening, depending on the image. Mask out the face (except eyes,
lips, jewelry).
2. Select the face, jump to new layer and sharpen new layer on red
channel only. This will prevent any pores/belishes from being
sharpened.

Cheers,
Simon
iRon said:
I want to sharpen everything but the face(s).
Mike Salzlechner said:
Always use some sort of smarft sharpen. What you want is to sharpen
edges only. So first use edge detection techniques and then use
that as a mask to sharpen.

The reverse works for cleanup of noise also btw.

--
Michael Salzlechner
StarZen Digital Imaging
http://www.starzen.com/imaging

photos at http://www.salzlechner.com/photo
Click to expand...
--
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
CANON 10D - S-30 - A-1 film
 
There are many different ways to sharpen an image and it's the image that should dictate what sharpening would work best, not a general blanket statement. Someone further up in the thread gave a good example of what I'm referring to.

With that said, the more sharpening tricks you know the better. Along with the good tips previously mentioned, I'd also like to add the book "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching." The companion web site for the book is http://www.digitalretouch.org . They cover 5 different sharpening techinques. :)

Gary T

--
http://www.pbase.com/winterfire
http://www.goldfrost.com
 
Gary T said:
There are many different ways to sharpen an image and it's the
image that should dictate what sharpening would work best, not a
general blanket statement. Someone further up in the thread gave a
good example of what I'm referring to.

With that said, the more sharpening tricks you know the better.
Along with the good tips previously mentioned, I'd also like to add
the book "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching." The companion web
site for the book is http://www.digitalretouch.org . They cover 5 different
sharpening techinques. :)

Gary T

--
http://www.pbase.com/winterfire
http://www.goldfrost.com
Click to expand...
 
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