The one and ONLY way to sharpen your image.
objective: sharpen image, without pixelization in clear areas, ie noise in sky
definition: sharpening an image: means to increase contrast between adjacent pixels so that the edges are more distinct
USING HIGH PASS
filters/other/high pass
1. Make a copy of your background layer.
2. Put in “overlay” in blend mode (soft light is what I use) oon the copy
3. Highlight copy
4. Go to filter, other, high pass
5. In high pass, move slider left and right. when image remains gray, edges show, but little or no color, and only a little or no halo, then click OK (I tend to use 5-10 on high res images)
6. Zoom in 100% or more and scroll around sharpened layer (top layer) to see that clear areas are still OK and rest of image has sharper pixels.
a. if noise in clear area, back off opacity 25-50% on sharpened layer
b. if not sharp enough, duplicate this layer, and check again. If too much reduce opacity by 25-50% and check again.
OR:
7. “If you want to increase the sharpening amount, go back up to the Blend Mode options in the top left corner of the Layers palette, click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of the word. “Overlay” and change the blend mode to Hard Light”a I find this is always too harsh for me.
8. “If you want to reduce the amount of sharpening, change the blend mode from “Overlay” to Soft Light,”b This is what I use
9. Do NOT oversharpen. YOu can always add more. Hard to reduce too much.
HOW HIGH PASS WORKS:
• neutral ie 0 is middle gray
• all pixels that are lighter than 0 go brighter
• all pixels that are darker than 0 go darker.
• thus when you are at 0 you will only see a flat gray image.
• as you move slider, you will see edges start to sharpen.
• you do NOT want to sharpen the color, only the pixels.
• Therefore NEVER say OK when the color shows in the preview image.
Bibliography:
1. from my experience using high pass
2. Photoshop CS6 Tutorial: Sharpening your Images
3. Sharpen Images With The High Pass Filter In Photoshop
Notes:
a & b are both quotes from: 3. Sharpen Images With The High Pass Filter In Photoshop