High Pass Sharpening

[desmondekker]

Hi, just got my hands on PS CS4, can advise whether i'm doing this high pass sharpening thingy correctly?

soft eye on the subject

slightly better? :dunno:

 

[shelomoh]

Try unsharpen mask.

 

[limwhow]

Hello, desmondekker.

I agree with shelomoh on the use of UM.
I took the liberty to duplicate a layer and do a selection on the whole fish to do one round of UM at 150%.
After a close examination, I found that the eye still lacks sharpness, and I selected only the eye, and did one more round of UM. The background all remained untouched.
Would this be what you wanted?

 

[Ian]

Hello, desmondekker.

I agree with shelomoh on the use of UM.
I took the liberty to duplicate a layer and do a selection on the whole fish to do one round of UM at 150%.
After a close examination, I found that the eye still lacks sharpness, and I selected only the eye, and did one more round of UM. The background all remained untouched.
Would this be what you wanted?

Way oversharpened now and looks unnatural. The eye is too sharp compared to the rest of the fish and it looks like the eye is bloated. Try again :thumbsd:

 

[Lolrence]

Hello, desmondekker.

I agree with shelomoh on the use of UM.
I took the liberty to duplicate a layer and do a selection on the whole fish to do one round of UM at 150%.
After a close examination, I found that the eye still lacks sharpness, and I selected only the eye, and did one more round of UM. The background all remained untouched.
Would this be what you wanted?

Limwhow did a good demonstration, and to add on, I would mask that layer and selectively block off (gradually) parts that look too sharp, and adjust the opacity if needed.

 

[limwhow]

Way oversharpened now and looks unnatural. The eye is too sharp compared to the rest of the fish and it looks like the eye is bloated. Try again :thumbsd:

Haha... Ok. You are right. I agree with you. I think in my earnestness I have inadvertently sharpened too much. Must be that second round of UM. Point noted with lots of thanks, Ian. TS, you can certainly learn from my mistake.

Limwhow did a good demonstration, and to add on, I would mask that layer and selectively block off (gradually) parts that look too sharp, and adjust the opacity if needed.

Yeah, lypklypk. I should have done that. Good advice. Hey, looks like I am the one who is benefiting from all the advice from the experienced members here instead! Haha... thanks!

 

[limwhow]

Gentlemen, allow me to give this another attempt. This time round I have broken down my steps so that we can see if I have made any mistakes.

First, I duplicated a layer and selected only the body of the fish without the eye.
Reason why I did this was I noticed the scales of the body not sharp enough.
And it would be not natural to have sharper eyes with soft scales as they are almost on the same plane.
I USM (unsharp mask) only 80% to bring out the details a little.

Next, I duplicated another layer and selected only the eye.
I thought of lypklypk's suggestion and decided to feather my selection by 10 pixles
to gradually fade the effect of USM as it crosses the edge of the selection.

Then I applied 150% USM onto the feathered selection on the eye.

I subsequently reduced the Opacity of this layer to 85% so that the USM is not so obvious.

The final picture has much less sharpened eye. I studied both the original and the PP-ed picture
and found slightly more details on the scales of the body. Here it is:

Would be grateful if you all can tell me if this works or not.
Thank you, gentlemen.

 

[limwhow]

Here again, a comparison between the original and the PP-ed (1st time round and 2nd time round) pictures:

Original

PP-ed (2nd time round)

PP-ed (1st time round, overly sharpened eyes)

Hmmmm.... sh*t, the second time round one certainly eye is sharper, but after looking very closely at it for a while,
it seems not sharp enough still, not to my satisfaction.
What do you gentlemen think?
Haiyah... never mind. Can try again.

 

[Cartman2000]

Gentlemen, allow me to give this another attempt. This time round I have broken down my steps so that we can see if I have made any mistakes.

First, I duplicated a layer and selected only the body of the fish without the eye.
Reason why I did this was I noticed the scales of the body not sharp enough.
And it would be not natural to have sharper eyes with soft scales as they are almost on the same plane.
I USM (unsharp mask) only 80% to bring out the details a little.

Next, I duplicated another layer and selected only the eye.
I thought of lypklypk's suggestion and decided to feather my selection by 10 pixles
to gradually fade the effect of USM as it crosses the edge of the selection.

Then I applied 150% USM onto the feathered selection on the eye.

I subsequently reduced the Opacity of this layer to 85% so that the USM is not so obvious.

The final picture has much less sharpened eye. I studied both the original and the PP-ed picture
and found slightly more details on the scales of the body. Here it is:

Would be grateful if you all can tell me if this works or not.
Thank you, gentlemen.

Very good effort and attempt to help solve TS's problem. :thumbsup: to you

 

[limwhow]

Very good effort and attempt to help solve TS's problem. :thumbsup: to you

Thank you, Cartman2000 bro.
What's your opinion on the final PP-ed picture?

 

[Cartman2000]

Thank you, Cartman2000 bro.
What's your opinion on the final PP-ed picture?

I agree with you, the fish now stands out more but it's still not as sharp as I would like it to be, though granted that the original image was not the sharpest to work with, IMO it's quite enough for me already

 

[ziploc]

What's your opinion on the final PP-ed picture?

The first one is oversharpen on the fish body and waaaaaaaaay oversharpen on its eye (so much so that it looks like dragon eye). The second one, can still sharpen further. My preference would be something between first and second pic.

 

[limwhow]

I agree with you, the fish now stands out more but it's still not as sharp as I would like it to be, though granted that the original image was not the sharpest to work with, IMO it's quite enough for me already

The first one is oversharpen on the fish body and waaaaaaaaay oversharpen on its eye (so much so that it looks like dragon eye). The second one, can still sharpen further. My preference would be something between first and second pic.

Yes, I agree with both of you gentlemen on the fact that the second one is not sharp enough.
Maybe I shouldn't have reduced the opacity to 85%.
Maybe the feathering took the edge out of the USM.
Thank you both for your feedback.
... well, back to the drawing board!

 

[limwhow]

Ok, let's see how this goes.
I have made some changes upon the 2nd attempt PP.
Here I have listed them out all for the sake of comparison.

Original

3rd attempt. This is the latest one in which I increased the USM by a 90% both on the Eye and the body.
I have also increased the Opacity of the Eye layer back to 100%.

2nd attempt. This is the one that I found not satisfactory. Not sharp enough.

1st attempt. This is the one that was over-sharpeded, and yes, haha.. like dragon eye.

I personally think that the 3rd attempt most probably can just make it.
I think that's the fun about PS. Sometimes can do until kee-siao like that but still can't get the effects we want.
But I guess experience counts. I am still learning.

 

[ziploc]

3rd one is ok to me - sharp enough but not overly sharpen, such that the fish still blend in with the surrounding.

 

[limwhow]

3rd one is ok to me - sharp enough but not overly sharpen, such that the fish still blend in with the surrounding.

Yupe. Thanks, ziploc. Appreciate all frank opinions from yourself, Ian, lypklypk and Cartman2000!

 

[night86mare]

not a bad try,

but hey, if something is oof, there is only so much you can do.

 

[limwhow]

not a bad try,

but hey, if something is oof, there is only so much you can do.

Haha... yes yes, night86mare, I concur. But why did I choose to give this an attempt?
Because it is not every day that a newbie like me have a chance to - do something, get feedback,
go back and redo it, and then get feedback, then finally go back and redo all over again.
Too many people are too kek-kee to give frank opinion.
And that hinders my progress in learning. Therefore here in this thread, got gentle-prodding, got whacking, and all that...
I found it a rare opportunity. So go for it lah!
OOF also try to make into not so OOF lah. (joking joking...:bsmilie

 

[night86mare]

I found it a rare opportunity. So go for it lah!
OOF also try to make into not so OOF lah. (joking joking...:bsmilie

well, the fastest way is to get the big size image, and sharpen from there, it will even look decent at 800 pixels wide.

the trouble is, whatever you do, it will not look good on 8R, because in the first place, the detail is not there! 4r can of course.

just emphasizing the point that, get it right in the first place, don't have to quibble over whether it is sharpened to look less oof or not. i am not criticizing the use of your time, just telling TS, get the focus right next time!

 

[Limsgp]

Perhaps it maybe better to ask TS for the original sized picture to do the PP? to start with a small picture it's quite limited to how much improvement can be achieved.

Haha... yes yes, night86mare, I concur. But why did I choose to give this an attempt?
Because it is not every day that a newbie like me have a chance to - do something, get feedback,
go back and redo it, and then get feedback, then finally go back and redo all over again.
Too many people are too kek-kee to give frank opinion.
And that hinders my progress in learning. Therefore here in this thread, got gentle-prodding, got whacking, and all that...
I found it a rare opportunity. So go for it lah!
OOF also try to make into not so OOF lah. (joking joking...:bsmilie