Alan Rodmell

I have just learned a really useful little tip for Sharpening images in Photoshop which I thought I should share with you all.

Until now when I sharpened an image in CS3 with Smart Sharpen I used to sharpen and then leave it at that. As you may well know over sharpening can produce exaggerated noise and produce “halo” effects on your edges which look plain nasty.

Here’s a few useful tips to help you improve the quality of your sharpening.

– Always sharpen to a NEW LAYER (Merge all to new layer using SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+E on PC’s) – I always convert this layer to a smart object to allow me to modify any applied filter effects.

– Always change the blend mode on this layer to LUMINOSITY. This massively reduces the halo effects on your sharpened image. (Try over-sharpening an image and then changing the blend mode to luminosity just to see this in action)

– Follow these guidelines for smart sharpening for the best results

For STANDARD SHARPENING – Amount 100, Radius <=2
For SOFT IMAGES – Amount 140, Radius <=1
For PORTRAITS – Amount <=5

Try these guidelines out and see what you think.