Edge Sharpening - One Method

[FDPiech]

If any of you have ever used FM?s Sharpen Pro, you already have an idea of what edge sharpening is. It?s a way to only sharpen the parts of an image where there is a distinct edge while leaving ?clean? areas like sky etc unsharpened.

This technique is a little long winded, but it works really well.

Here is our starting image? This is a crop of one of the images of LeLe I got at the zoo last week.

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_starting_image.jpg

What we want to do in this shot is sharpen the fur, but leave the out of focus part smooth.

Step 1) copy the background layer to a new layer. Front the layer pallet drag the background to new layer icon or from the menu click <Layer><Duplicate Layer>

Step 2) Run <Filter><Styalize><Find Edges> on this new layer. You should have something like this:

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_2.jpg

Step 3) Now we want to put a curve on this layer. And a pretty aggressive curve at that. Press <ctrl><M> or from the menu select <Image><Adjustments><Curves> to pull up a curves dialog. Put a curve on it something like this:

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_3_a.jpg

Notice the white box at the top right of the curves window. See how I?ve dragged it to the left? That is what makes the soft lines in the background go way. Then notice the basic shape of this curve. It?s this shape curve that makes the hard edges very dark. Imitate this basic shape and play with it for your image so that the edges of the object have good hard definition. Then play with that top box to push things you DON?T want sharpened to white. This is my result:

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_3_b.jpg

Step 4) Blur this image. To smooth out the harshness of this image we are going to put a slight Gaussian Blur on this layer. Use a very low radius? for this image I used a radius of 1.2

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_4.jpg

Step 5) Make this layer into a channel so we can use it as a selection. Press <ctrl><A> to select the whole layer, Click over to the Channels Pallet, Click on the new Channel icon at the bottom of the Channels pallet, (this will make a new channel called Alpha 1) then press <ctrl><V> to paste our edges layer into this new channel then press <ctrl><D> to deselect the original layer.

Your Channels layer should look like this when you?re done.

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_5.jpg

Step 6) Click back over to your Layers pallet, Point at the edges layer that we made in the above steps and drag it down to the little trash can at the bottom of the pallet. We don?t need it anymore.

Step 7) Copy the background layer to a new layer. Front the layer pallet drag the background to new layer icon or from the menu click <Layer><Duplicate Layer>

Step 8) Load the Alpha Channel we created earlier as a new selection. From the Menu click <Select><Load Selection> to open the Load Selection Dialog. In the Channel Drop down select ?Alpha 1? and be SURE to click the INVERT check box.

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_step_8.jpg

You should now see the ?Marching Ants? on your image?

Step 9) Now we want to contract this selection by one px? just to be sure we are only sharpening the edges of things and nothing more? Click <Select><Modify><Contract> Enter ?1? in the box and click <OK>

Step 10) Do an aggressive USM (Unsharp Mask) on this layer. The key here is to set the amount very high.. like 300 to 400 and the radius to an amount dependant on what your final output is. If you are doing a small image? like for the web? make the radius 0.3? for a file around 2000x1300px make the radius 0.6 for a highres file, make the radius about 1.3 This is kind of a touchy / feely amount. This sounds very aggressive? but with the selection we?ve made? only the edges will get sharpened. Be sure to keep your Threshold at 0

I did this image at 0.3

Step 11) Press <ctrl><D> to deselect the ?Marching Ants?

EDIT->

Step 12) You can adjust the Opacity of this layer to get the sharpen effect just the way you want.

<-EDIT

And that?s it? Yeah? I know it?s long? but it works REALLY well? as you can see here:

http://www.piechdesign.net/tutorial_img/sharp_final_image.jpg

[JBMUK]

your full of these great tips - maybe you should create some actions out of them..

[GlenJDiamond]

Here's another version using a similar edge sharpening technique..., use "calculations" on the two channels that have the least amount of noise - blend with pin-light to produce a new channel, run the "find edges" filter over the new channel, "ctrl-i" to invert the channel, use blur to smooth it out, use levels to brighten the blurred edges, then make it a selection (left most icon in bottom of channels pallette). Then sharpen using your favourite method.