ptg 331Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: Now, choose a medium-sized, soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar, and then simply take the Sharpen tool and paint over just the areas you want to appear sharp (this is really handy for portraits like this, because you can avoid areas you want to remain soft, like skin, but then super-sharpen areas you want to be really nice and crisp, like her belt). Since this tool is doing a lot of math behind the scenes, depending on how much you paint, you might have to wait a moment or two before the final sharpening is revealed. Back in the CS4 version of this book, I used to teach a more complex version of this idea of “painting with sharpness,” because we couldn’t use the Sharpen tool back then— it would just ruin your image. Instead, we had to super-sharpen a duplicate layer, hide it behind a black layer mask, and paint the sharpening back in where we wanted it. Step Four: Here’s a before/after of the image after painting over areas that you’d normally sharpen, like her clothes, hair, and belt, while avoiding all areas of flesh tone. Note: One of the tricks the pros use to get incredibly sharp-looking photos is to apply their sharpening once, and then go back and spot sharpen only those areas in the photo that can hold a lot of sharpening (for example, areas that contain chrome, metal, steel, buttons on clothing, jewelry, or even your subject’s eyes in some cases). So, first apply the regular Unsharp Mask filter to the entire image, then go back with the Sharpen tool and paint over just those areas that can really take a lot of sharpening. It makes the whole photo look that much sharper, even though you just super-sharpened a few key areas. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg SCOTT KELBY 332 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Although it hasn’t caught on like many of us hoped, the Smart Sharpen filter offers some of the most advanced sharpening available in Photoshop CS5 (along with the newly updated Sharpen tool), because within it is a special sharpening algorithm that’s better than the one found in the ever popular Unsharp Mask filter—you just have to know where to turn it on. Because Unsharp Mask is still so popular (old habits are hard to break), I find that I generally switch to Smart Sharpen when I run into a photo that’s visibly out of focus. When to Use the Smart Sharpen Filter Instead Step One: Go under the Filter menu, under Sharpen, and choose Smart Sharpen. This filter is in Basic mode by default, so there are only two sliders: Amount controls the amount of sharpening (I know, “duh!”) and Radius determines how many pixels the sharpening will affect. The default Amount setting of 100% seems too high to me for everyday use, so I usually find myself lowering it to between 60% and 70%. The Radius is set at 1 by default, and I rarely change that, but for this image, I raised it to 2. Step Two: Below the Radius slider is the Remove pop-up menu (shown here), which lists the three types of blurs you can reduce. Gaussian Blur (the default) applies the same sharpening you get using the regular Unsharp Mask filter. Motion Blur is use- less, unless you can accurately determine the angle of blur in your image (which I’ve yet to be able to do even once). The third one is the one I recommend: Lens Blur. This uses a sharpening algorithm created by Adobe’s engineers that’s bet- ter at detecting edges, so it creates fewer color halos than you’d get with the other choices, and overall I think it gives you better sharpening for most images. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 333Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques Continued The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: The only downside to choosing Lens Blur is that it makes the filter take a little longer to “do its thing.” (That’s why it’s not the default choice, even though it provides better-quality sharpening.) After you choose Lens Blur, go to the bottom of the dialog and you’ll see a checkbox for More Accurate. It gives you (according to Adobe) more accurate sharpening by applying multiple iterations of the sharp- ening. I leave More Accurate turned on nearly all the time. (After all, who wants “less accurate” sharpening?) Note: If you’re working on a large file, the More Accurate option can cause the filter to process slower, so it’s up to you if it’s worth the wait (I think it is). By the way, the use of the More Accurate checkbox is one of those topics that Photoshop users debate back and forth in online forums. For regular everyday sharpening it might be overkill, but again, the reason I use Smart Sharpen is because the photo is visibly blurry, slightly out of focus, or needs major sharpening to save. So I leave this on all the time. Step Four: If you find yourself applying a setting such as this over and over again, you can save these settings and add them to the Settings pop-up menu at the top of the dialog by clicking on the floppy disk icon to the right of the pop-up menu. (Why a floppy disk icon? I have no idea.) This brings up a dialog for you to name your saved settings, and then click OK. Now, the next time you’re in the Smart Sharpen filter dialog and you want to instantly call up your saved settings, just choose it from the Settings pop-up menu (as shown here). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 334 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Five: If you click the Advanced radio button, it reveals two additional tabs with controls for reducing the sharpening in just the shadow or just the highlight areas that are applied to the settings you chose back in the Basic section. That’s why in the Shadow and Highlight tabs, the top slider says “Fade Amount” rather than just “Amount.” As you drag the Fade Amount slider to the right, you’re reducing the amount of sharpening already applied, which can help reduce any halos in the highlights. (Note: Without increasing the amount of fade, you can’t tweak the Tonal Width and Radius amounts. They only kick in when you increase the Fade Amount.) Thankfully, I rarely have had to use these Advanced controls, so 99% of my work in Smart Sharpen is done using the Basic controls. Before After Download from www.wowebook.com ptg SCOTT KELBY 335Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Continued Step One: Open a photo that needs some extreme sharpening, like this photo taken at an airshow. Duplicate the Background layer by pressing Command-J (PC: Ctrl-J), as shown here. Step Two: Go under the Filter menu, under Other, and choose High Pass. You use this filter to accentuate the edges in the photo, and making those edges stand out can really give the impression of mega-sharpening. I start by dragging the Radius slider all the way to the left (everything turns gray onscreen), then I start dragging it over to the right. For non-HDR images, I don’t drag it all that far—I just drag until I see the edges of objects in the photos appear clearly, and then I stop. The farther you drag, the more intense the sharpening will be, but if you drag too far, you start to get these huge glows and the effect starts to fall apart, so don’t get carried away. Now, click OK to apply the sharpening. I don’t normally include the same technique twice in the same book, but if you read the HDR chapter, I included High Pass sharpening there too, because it’s become kind of synonymous with HDR processing. Of course, what I’m concerned about is that you skipped over the HDR chapter altogether, and came here to the sharpening chapter, and you’d be wondering why the very popular High Pass sharpening technique (which creates extreme sharpening) wasn’t included in the book. Well, it’s so good, it is covered twice. :) High Pass Sharpening Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 336 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: In the Layers panel, change the layer blend mode of this layer from Normal to Hard Light. This removes the gray color from the layer, but leaves the edges accen- tuated, making the entire photo appear much sharper (as seen here). If the sharp- ening seems too intense, you can control the amount of the effect by lowering the layer’s Opacity in the Layers panel. Step Four: If you want even more sharpening, dupli- cate the High Pass layer to double-up the sharpening. If that’s too much, lower the Opacity of the top layer. One problem with High Pass sharpening is that you might get a glow along some edges (like the one along the bottom of the plane in Step Three). The trick to getting rid of that is to: (1) press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to merge the two High Pass layers, (2) click the Add Layer Mask button at the bottom of the panel, (3) get the Brush tool (B), and with a small soft-edged brush and your Foreground color set to black, (4) paint right along the edge, revealing the original, unsharpened edge with no glow. A before/after is below. Before For more sharpening, duplicate the layer Merge the two layers and add a layer mask After Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 337Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers If you wind up doing all your edits from right within Camera Raw, and then you save straight to a JPEG or TIFF right from Camera Raw, as well (skipping the jump to Photoshop altogether), you’ll still want to sharpen your image for how the image will be viewed (onscreen, in print, etc.). This is called “output sharpening” (the sharpening you do in Camera Raw’s Detail panel is called “input sharpening,” because it’s designed to replace the sharpening that would have been done in your camera if you had shot in JPEG or TIFF mode). Step One: Before we do this output sharpening, it’s important to note that this sharpening only kicks in if you’re going to save your image from right here within Camera Raw by clicking the Save Image button in the bottom-left corner of the Camera Raw window. If you click the Open Image or Done button, the output sharpening is not applied. Okay, now that you know, you find output sharpening by clicking on the line of text (which looks like a Web link) below the Preview area (it’s circled here in red). Step Two: First, choose how you want this image sharpened from the Sharpen For pop-up menu near the bottom: For Screen is for images you’re going to post on the Web, email to a client, or present in a slide show. If the image is going to be printed, choose whether you’ll be printing to Glossy Paper or Matte Paper. Lastly, choose the amount of sharpening you want from the Amount pop-up menu. Camera Raw will do the math based on the image’s resolution, your paper choice, and amount choice (I never choose Low, by the way) to calculate the exact right amount of output sharpening. Note: When you click OK, sharpening stays on from now on. To turn it off, choose None from the Sharpen For pop-up menu. Output Sharpening in Camera Raw SCOTT KELBY Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 338 The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Photoshop Killer Tips Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques Content-Aware Fill Tips If you selected an image and tried Content-Aware Fill on it, but you’re not happy with the results, try one of these two tips: (1) Press Command-Z (PC: Ctrl-Z) to Undo the Fill, then try Content-Aware Fill again. It’s somewhat random in choosing the area it samples to fill its area from, so simply trying it again might do the trick (this works more often than you might think). (2) Try to expand your selection a little bit. Once you’ve put a selection around what you want to remove, then go under the Select menu, under Modify, and choose Expand, and try expanding your selection by 3 or 4 pixels, and try Content-Aware Fill again. It just might do the trick. If One of Your Tools Starts Acting Weird chances are something has changed in the options for that tool (up in the Options Bar) that may not be obvious by just looking at the Options Bar. In that case, you can reset the tool to its factory defaults by Right-clicking directly on the little down-facing arrow next to the tool’s icon at the far left side of the Options Bar, and a pop-up menu will appear where you can choose to reset your current tool, or all your tools. Merge to HDR Pro Can Make Killer B&W Images I know that when you say “HDR” most folks picture those surreal, super-vibrant images that you see all over the Web, which is why you may not think of Merge to HDR Pro as a choice for creating black-and-white images, but it actually does a pretty amazing job (and although most of the built-in presets that come with Merge to HDR Pro kinda stink, the Monochromatic (B&W) presets aren’t half bad. Give this a try the next time you shoot a bracketed image. When You’re Making Selections Near the Edge of Your Document When you’re making a selection (with the Polygonal Lasso or regular Lasso tool), and you reach the edge of your document window, you don’t have to release and start over—just press-and-hold the Spacebar, and your Lasso tool temporarily switches to the Hand tool, so you can move over enough to complete your selec- tion, then release the Spacebar and it switches you back to the Lasso tool, and (here’s what’s so cool) your selection-in-process has been frozen in place, so now you can pick right up where you were. Are You Using All Your RAM? A lot of folks are wondering what all the fuss is about the whole 64-bit version of Photoshop. Well, it’s all Giving Your Raw Image to Someone Else (Along with Your Edits) If you’ve edited a photo in Camera Raw, and you give the RAW file to a client, they won’t see the edits you’ve made to the file, unless: (a) you include the sepa- rate XMP file along with your RAW file (it should be found right beside the RAW file in your image folder), or (2) you save the file in DNG format in the Format pop-up menu in Camera Raw’s Save Options dia- log (DNG is Adobe’s open-source format for RAW images, and it embeds your edits in the DNG file). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 339 The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Photoshop Killer Tips Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques about RAM. Running Photoshop in 32-bit mode means it you can only access 4GB of RAM, no mat- ter how many gigs of RAM you have installed in your computer. If you run CS5 in 64-bit (which is new on the Mac in CS5), you can literally assign hundreds of gigs of RAM (which is only necessary if you’re working on really, really huge files, by the way, but it’s nice to know it’s there). Anyway, that’s the deal. If you work with big files and need to use more RAM to keep those big files moving along, then you need to make sure you’re running 64-bit mode (on a Mac, click on the Photoshop icon, then press Command-I and turn off the Open in 32-bit Mode checkbox). Retouching Tip for Liquify If you’re using the Liquify filter to do some retouching on a portrait, you can make sure you don’t accidentally move an area you don’t want to affect by freezing it, and there are freeze tools in Liquify, but it’s easier to just put a selection around the area you want to adjust first, then bring up the Liquify filter, and any area outside your selected area is automatically frozen. (You’ll see a rectangle with your selection in it in the Preview area, and the areas outside your selection will be masked in red.) Bringing Back Picture Package Back in Photoshop CS4, Adobe removed some plug-in features for Photoshop, like the Picture Package plug-in (for putting multiple photos on the same page, like two 4x6s and 8 wallet-size), and the Contact Sheet II plug-in, and they removed the Extract Filter, and a few more. If you miss these guys, you can bring them back, as Adobe has made then downloadable from their website. Just go to www.adobe .com and, in the Search field, type in “Optional Plug-ins for CS5,” and you’ll find them in two seconds. Keeping Your Camera Settings to Yourself If you’re posting an image on the Web, or sending an image to a client, you might not want to have all your camera settings, and camera serial number, included in the image where anyone can view it (after all, does your client really need to know you shot this at f/5.6 at 800 ISO?). So, to keep your camera settings to yourself, just press Command-A (PC: Ctrl-A) to select your entire image, then copy it into memory. Now press Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N) and Photoshop will automatically create a new document that is the exact size, resolution, and color mode as the image you copied into memory. Next, paste your image into this new blank document. Now press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to flatten the image, and you can send this file anywhere without having your camera data in the file. However, I would go under the File menu and choose File Info, then click on the Description tab, and I’d enter my copy- right info in the Copyright section. Download from www.wowebook.com ptg Photo by Scott Kelby Exposure: 1/125 sec | Focal Length: 24mm | Aperture Value: ƒ/6.3 Download from www.wowebook.com . Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Step Three: Now, choose a medium-sized, soft-edged brush from the Brush Picker in the Options Bar, and then simply take the Sharpen. included in the book. Well, it’s so good, it is covered twice. :) High Pass Sharpening Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 336 Chapter 11 Sharpening Techniques The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital. file). Download from www.wowebook.com ptg 339 The Adobe Photoshop CS5 Book for Digital Photographers Photoshop Killer Tips Chapter 11Sharpening Techniques about RAM. Running Photoshop in 32-bit mode