Good Unsharp Mask Settings

[Dean]

For those with Photoshop, I learned some good Unsharp mask settings that can be generally applied to images to sharpen them up...

Hmm why do they call it \"Unsharp Mask\" when it actually sharpens images????

Anyway, Here are the settings:

Amount: 50%
Radius: 0.3
Threshold: 0

Depending on the image, you may need to apply this more than once and up to 3 times, but beware that it does exacerbate noise once you apply more than twice. It is also good as a general sharpener after you downsize images (which tends to soften them up a little).

Anyway hope that helps. It doesnt work for all images but works better than that basic sharpening tool in Photoshop, in my opinion.

[mikefellh]

What settings you use depends on the image and what you want to accomplish.

For instance, there\'s a proceedure called \"Local Contrast Enhancement\" that uses some really strange settings:

Amount — 20%
Radius — 50
Threshold — 0

Check it out at:
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast-enhancement.shtml

Also do a search for \"Local Contrast Enhancement\" on Google.com.


As for the background of the unsharp mask, it comes from a method in the traditional darkroom. To sharpen an image one would create a blurred (or unsharp) negative of the original, and then overlay the two images and create a final print from that.

[kengreen]

Here\'s a link to another sharpening method that also can be used with success on some images:
http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/high-pass-sharpening.shtml

What they say about sharpening can be undone since its done to a separate layer seems redundant knowledge. I always sharpen separate layer first and if happy merge or flatten the image.
Ken

[First Light]

I agree with mikefellh, the settings you use will vary depending on the image you\'re working with and what you want to achieve. I recommend the book \"Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers\" by Scott Kelby. It provides lots of step-by-step instructions.

As for why it\'s called the Unsharpen Mask, it refers to the underlying steps required to \"sharpen\" an image. If the Unsharpen Mask filter didn\'t exist and you had to sharpen an image manually, you would create a series of layers and use the Gaussian Blur filter (to \"blur\" is to \"unsharpen\") and possibly the Emboss filter on select channels and/or layers to create a mask to highlight the edges and raise the perceived sharpness of the image.

[admin_old]

I had bought the Kelby book as a refresher to learn about PS CS, It is a great book. I bought a Bigger book for CS2... And I haven\'t even cracked it.
I like the Kelby book a lot. It is easy to read and understand.
T

Post edited by: tspore, at: 2005/09/18 11:05