A great way to Sharpen photos with High Pass
Some people sharpen every photo and I admit that I fall into that category most of the time. If I am going to print only a 4 by 6 snapshot size there is almost no need as your pixels are so compressed that sharpening is hardly needed.
My previous way of sharpening was a method taught by Tom Donovan in his Elements classes at WTC in La Crosse. You note that I said classes. I would love to meet the person that could only take one Photoshop class and understand even what to do when you toggle away your tool bar!
Tom is a great teacher, don't misunderstand but when you're a grandmother of grandson's 26, 24, and 22 the brain cells grow slower or don't grow at all...anyway...on to Tom's method.
RULE #1: wait till you are all done with all your manipulations and then sharpen as the last thing.
Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharpen Mask> and choose Amount>9, Radius>in the 90's, Threshold>0, Click OK.
Then repeat and go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharpen Mask and choose Amount> in the 90's, Radius about 1.3 to 1.5, and Threshold>0, Click OK. Review your work. With object, landscape etc. These work fine. I find with people that I often dump the second go around into the trash.
Now on the the new method I like which works extremely well for photos with lots of detail. Work on your duplicate layer. If you have finished your previous work flow save the work and open a new file and duplicate. Open Filter>Other>High Pass. Enter a number which lets you see some detail and color in the gray areas. (Usually a low number about 4 or 5 if lots of detail) Double click on the gray layer and change the Blend mode (box that usually has the word Normal inside it) to Soft Light. This effect works by adding contrast to the edges. It takes the darks and makes them darker and takes the lights and makes them lighter sort of in the same way as a Gradient. What was gray is untouched. You can try Overlay blend mode which may give a nice result also. Try it...you may like it.
The one on the left is the original (no sharpening) and the one on the right I have used the High Pass Method. You can see even with these small photos much more detail in the flowers and rocks. When printed to a 8 by 10 or 16 by 20 the results are extremely evident. Enjoy! Mary Ann
