"Smart Sharpening" Technique

[jeaniesa]

I was wandering around the links on the John Houston site that Chris just posted and found a great technique for sharpening. I tried it on a photo and what a difference!! Some of you may already know this technique, but I thought it was a really cool find. Between this technique and the one DJ posted for lightening dark areas, my photo retouching has just taken a huge leap forward.

Thanks Chris and DJ for sending me down this path.

Jeanie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Jeanie
I'm glad you feel like you're getting alot from this crew. I have seen that sharpening technique and think it is a good one. Thanks for posting it as I know everyone will find this a good technique for their skill library.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Jeanie,

That's a great link! Thank you very much. There is also a *lot* of other information on the home page at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/table_of_contents.htm
I could spend a lot of time there.

Ed

[jeaniesa]

Originally posted by Ed_L
I could spend a lot of time there.

I already have! I thought I was going to catch up on paying bills today. Oh well - they'll be there tomorrow. Jeanie

[Ed_L]

Hey Jeanie, life's for Photoshoppin', not for paying bills.

One note for others who might download the image from the site. When I went to make a new channel, it was grayed out, and I couldn't do it. Looking to see what else was grayed out, I found many things (most) were grayed out. Aha! A clue! You have to convert the image from a 16 bit file to an 8 bit file. Then you're all set. Thanks again Jeanie, it worked very well.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

I visited the site you gave and they have some good equipment reviews for those of you buying some new hardware and some interesting tutorials and lots more I didn't get to check out yet. I didn't get to really examine all of the tutorials or reviews but I plan to go back there and play around for awhile. Thanks again for the great link.
DJ

[jeaniesa]

Originally posted by Ed_L
You have to convert the image from a 16 bit file to an 8 bit file. Then you're all set.

Huh. Is that what it was? I just converted the RGB file to grayscale and that worked too. Once again, many ways to accomplish the same thing!

Jeanie

[Ed_L]

Yeah, that's the beauty (or the problem) with Phoptoshop. Just when I think I'm doing something good, I find out there's a better/easier way to do it!

Ed

[jeaniesa]

The problem for me is that as I learn new techniques, I think back to all of the photos I've already worked on and know how much better they could be. Oh well, I guess that's the "price" of learning. (And yes, I would be quite bored with it if I thought there wasn't anything more to learn. I doubt that's going to happen for a very long time!) -Jeanie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Jeanie
You too? I have done so many pictures over the years and now I think that if I only knew then what I know now they could have been so much better. I almost wish I could go back and redo them.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Today I tried the sharpening technique on something that I wanted. The restore is not yet done, but I wanted to show you the results when using "smart sharpening". The image on the left was put on a new background, and there is a lot of junk in the photo. The one on the right has had noise put into the background to approximate the original image. I used gaussian blur on the one on the right to get rid of some of the noise on the face, and made the mask as suggested on the original link above. I couldn't get rid of a lot of the noise on the mask, so I painted those areas with white to make the mask better. I did my sharpening in lab mode, then brought the image back to RGB. Thanks again Jeanie. This was my first attempt with it, and here is the result.

Ed

[Ed_L]

Here it is.

[jeaniesa]

I'm impressed! I can really tell a difference. Smart thinking to clean up the mask with white - I haven't found a need to do that yet, but I thought of the same thing. Great job!

Jeanie

[Ed_L]

Thanks Jeanie. I didn't think you could really see the difference very easily on that one, so I'm posting a larger version of the important areas.

Ed

[jeaniesa]

Actually, I could see a difference on the one you first posted. But now I REALLY see the difference! -Jeanie