Photoshop: Unsharp Mask vs Smart Sharpen vs High Pass

[Sonny]

[Donb10]

I like this one too. Keep finding and sending..........

[The Philos]

I like frequency separation.

[photostein]

I use HP almost exclusively because it is the fastest way to prevent sharpening of smoother textures and identify the hard edges.

[dmcantrell]

what a great video! Thanks for sharing

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Great video Sonny! One thing he didn't mention about the high pass filter is that you can avoid the color halos if you change the image mode to Lab Color and only select the luminance channel for the sharpening... and then do the rest as he explained. When done, you can switch the mode back to color and you'll have the high pass effect without the color halos.

- Wil

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Wil_Bloodworth

Great video Sonny! One thing he didn't mention about the high pass filter is that you can avoid the color halos if you change the image mode to Lab Color and only select the luminance channel for the sharpening... and then do the rest as he explained. When done, you can switch the mode back to color and you'll have the high pass effect without the color halos.

- Wil

If I understand your flow correctly, this is similar to what Scott Kelby recommends for a sharpening flow. Doesn't the method you describe create an "undo-able" situation? In other words, once you make the switch to Lab Color, anything you've done up to that point cannot be undone.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

David,

Yes, it is undoable after you've saved/closed the image. Until then, you can always use the history tab to go back to a previous step. I prefer to use snapshots to get back to the step before the sharpening. Unfortunately, snapshots are not persisted so when you close the image and open it back up, all snapshots are gone.

Fortunately, I only do sharpening as the very last step (except for framing) and do so according to the target medium (web, print, or screen). And I'm always working on a virtual copy so I'm not sharpening the original image itself.

- Wil

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Wil_Bloodworth

Until then, you can always use the history tab to go back to a previous step.

Are you certain? I thought that going to Lab Color was a one-way door -- even in the current session. Rats now I have to go and test it out...

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Originally Posted by dmcantrell

Are you certain? I thought that going to Lab Color was a one-way door -- even in the current session. Rats now I have to go and test it out...

Sure. You can go back to any point since you opened the image using both the history and snapshots.

- Wil

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Wil_Bloodworth

Sure. You can go back to any point since you opened the image using both the history and snapshots.

- Wil

Oh, my bad it's that you lose your adjustment layers. When you go to Lab Color you lose your adjustment layers, effectively flattening the image. I just tried this in CS4.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Right. I always flatten the image before going to Lab Color so it doesn't matter at that point. You can always sharpen, save, and then revert to the step before the flatten and you'll never lose anything.

- Wil

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Wil_Bloodworth

Right. I always flatten the image before going to Lab Color so it doesn't matter at that point. You can always sharpen, save, and then revert to the step before the flatten and you'll never lose anything.

- Wil

I see. So in your flow are you doing this Lab Color / flattening as part of the output stage and not saving the results? That seems plausible.

I remember I looked at Lab Color sharpening techniques years ago, but chose to go a different way due to this flattening issue. Perhaps a flow review is in order on my part.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

Originally Posted by dmcantrell

I see. So in your flow are you doing this Lab Color / flattening as part of the output stage and not saving the results? That seems plausible.

Absolutely. I don't save sharpening with the final image. I just create a copy of the final image and then sharpen the copy, save it out to a JPG, and then use that JPG for whatever. And the sharpening will be different depending on the target.

- Wil

[jeffkohn]

If you don't want to lose layers to flattening when going to LAB, you can stay in RGB mode. Just do your sharpening on a duplicate layer with the blend mode set to "Luminosity". It's not quite the same as sharpening the lightness channel in LAB, but close enough for 95% of situations.

I've never liked high-pass sharpening, myself. To me the result often looks very "digital".

Deconvolution sharpening is where it's at. Photoshop's Smart Sharpen uses a simplified version of deconvolution, just make sure to set the "More Accurate" and "Lens Blur" options. ACR and LR also use a simplified version of deconvolution sharpening when the Detail slider is set to 100 (not recommended for high-ISO or noisy images).

I'm getting the best sharpening results with Focus Magic, on a duplicate layer with blend-if sliders set to protect the highlights and shadows. For the D3x a radius setting of 1 or 2 seems to work best, depending on the lens used. It's just too bad this plugin is currently 32-bit only.