What is edge sharpening? How can you get a free photoshop action that sharpens just the edges of your subject, and not noise and artifacts?

One of the things that I think often gets overlooked in processing is the right amount and method of sharpening. I have seen beautiful images destroyed by too much sharpening. I have also seen images that could be WOW, but they look kind of dull because they just need that extra sharpening punch. We are going to fix all that with this tutorial.

Sharpening for web is so important. Especially for your website where potential customers will be viewing your work. My favorite method of sharpening that I use for EVERY image is Edge Sharpening. I love this method because it looks so crisp and clean. Since it only sharpens the edges, it is great for high noise images because it won’t sharpen the grain. It will also leave skin nice and smooth. Too much sharpening can really make skin look rough. Here is another great thing about edge sharpening. When you use USM on your entire picture, it will blow out whites since it adds contrast. Using USM with edge sharpening will not blow out whites since it only sharpens the edges.

To get this amazing FREE “Edge Sharpening Action” by Jodi at MCP Actions, click here.

Here is how it works. First, open your image and make sure it is cropped and resized for web first. Now, play the MCP Edge Sharpening action. I am going to use a high noise image to show you how AWESOME edge sharpening is.

The first thing the action will do is make a mask on your image. You want the black to be really black and the white to be solid white with no areas of gray in it. When the levels box pops up, play around with the numbers until it looks right. I usually use shadows 150, mid tones 1.00 and highlights anywhere from 155 to 200, but do what works best for you. Whatever is solid white will NOT be sharpened, and whatever is outlined in black WILL be sharpened. This is what the mask looks like.

Next, comes the sharpening part. When the USM box pops up, enter your sharpening amounts. I always use amount 200, radius .5 and threshold 0. Now you see the marching ants showing you exactly what will be sharpened.

Sometimes that sharpening amount is too much, so just decrease the opacity of the sharpening layer.  There is also a built in mask if you want black to hide sharpening somewhere.

Now I want to show you what the image would look like if I applied the same USM settings to the entire picture. Do you see all the grain in the shadows behind him, the grain on his face and how crispy his hair looks in the global sharpened image?

Here is another example. Do you see how smooth her skin and hair looks in the edge sharpened image and how rough they both look in the global sharpened image?

Now, go forth and EDGE SHARPEN!!!!!

Thank you to Elisabeth Ross of Elisabeth Ross Photography for writing this tutorial to accompany my FREE Edge Sharpening Action. Elisabeth is both a portrait photographer and a mentor at ClickinMoms .

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Free Actions, Photoshop Actions, Photoshop Tips & Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.