Ian Barber Photography

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2 Ian Barber Photography Sharpen & Diffuse Photoshop Extension Panel June 2014 By Ian Barber 2

3 Ian Barber Photography Introduction The Sharpening and Diffuse Photoshop panel gives you easy access to various sharpening and diffusion options all from one convenient place. The panel is fully compatible with both Windows and Mac versions of Photoshop CC and Photoshop CC

4 Sharpening The panel contains four separate sharpening options which are: High Pass Gaussian Surface Smart (with presets) High Pass The High Pass retains edge details in the specified radius where sharp colour transitions occur and suppresses the rest of the image. (A radius of 0.1 pixel keeps only edge pixels.) The filter removes low-frequency detail from an image. You adjust the radius to suite your creative vision but be careful not to push this value to high as you run the risk of introducing artefacts like halos around the edges. By default, the panel sets the blending layer to Linear Light but you can experiment with other blending modes. Gaussian The Gaussian sharpen option actually uses the Gaussian blur to produce a sharpened image. To make it as simple as possible to understand it woks like this. Original Image - Blur = Outline Outline + Original Image = Final Result You adjust the radius to suite your creative vision but be careful not to push this value to high as you run the risk of introducing artefacts like halos around the edges. By default, the panel sets the blending layer to Linear Light but you can experiment with other blending modes. 4

Surface Blur The Surface Blur option blurs an image while preserving edges. The Radius option specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur.

5 Surface Blur The Surface Blur option blurs an image while preserving edges. The Radius option specifies the size of the area sampled for the blur. The Threshold option controls how much the tonal values of neighbouring pixels must diverge from the centre pixel value before being part of the blur. You adjust the radius and threshold to suite your creative vision but be careful not to push this value to high as you run the risk of introducing artefacts like halos around the edges. By default, the panel sets the blending layer to Linear Light but you can experiment with other blending modes. Smart (with presets) Smart Sharpen Sharpens an image by letting you set the sharpening algorithm or control the amount of sharpening that occurs in shadows and highlights. This is the recommended way to sharpen if you don t have a particular sharpening filter in mind. In Photoshop CC, the enhanced Smart Sharpen filter allows you to produce highquality results through adaptive sharpening technology that reduces noise and halo effects. I have included 4 presets which can be used as a starting point and you can then tweak the values to meet your own taste. 5

Sharpening Tips All digital images can benefit from sort of sharpening but one of the biggest issues I often see is the over use of sharpening in photographs.

6 Sharpening Tips All digital images can benefit from sort of sharpening but one of the biggest issues I often see is the over use of sharpening in photographs. Applying a small amount of sharpening several times through your workflow can sometimes be more beneficial than applying a large amount at the end. Pre Sharpening Unless you have disabled the function in your RAW converter such as Lightroom or Photoshop, a small amount of sharpening is applied to the image as it passes through the RAW conversion stage. Camera RAW and Lightroom apply a value of 25 by default. Landscapes When processing an image of a landscape which may contain elements in the distance such as trees, hills, mountains etc there is nothing worse when images appear to have been sharpened with the same amount all the way from the foreground to the distance. Naturally, the further away the elements in a scene are, the less sharp they appear to our eyes so try to remember this when faced with a scene which have elements in the distance. Graduated Filter One way to deal with this in Photoshop is to apply the sharpening effect to the whole image, then add a layer mask and use a graduated adjustment layer (black to transparent) to reduce the effect from the distance to the horizon. 6

7 Sky and Clouds I personally never sharpen sky or clouds simply because I think it looks un-natural. When I look at clouds with my own eyes, I always see softness and they never have crisp defined edges so why add that in the image. If you want to enhance the look of clouds especially when working in black and white, work on delicate contrast enhancements by brightening the whites and reducing the darks (dodging and burning). You can use the Dodge and Burn option for this which is in the Extras part of the Panel. 7

8 Output Sharpening Sharpening for output is one of the most important aspects of sharpening in my opinion. An image which has been sharpened to look good on screen in not necessarily going to look good in print. My typical workflow for dealing with this is. Work Non destructively I always work in layers in Photoshop and name them as I create them to help me remember what they do and why I created them Creative Sharpening Throughout the editing, I will usually apply a small amount of creative sharpening which is where I may make a selection and then apply some sharpening to that selection. Output Sharpening When I talk about output sharpening, I am referring to how the final image will be viewed, this is typically going to be either on screen or in print. Screen devices comes in all different sizes and resolutions, one viewer maybe looking at your image on a mobile phone and another viewer could be using the latest ipad retina display or even an imac 27 inch monitor. We have to always have that in mind when we are applying sharpening to an image. When I have completed the edit, I will then take all those layers and put them into a group and name that group Master Edit. At this stage, this file now becomes my Master file. I leave all the layers intact because it allows me to come back at anytime in the future and tweak any of the adjustments should I choose to. 8

9 Master File - All Layers Grouped What I do next is duplicate the file by going to Image - Duplicate and usually add the suffix - For Web or For Print to the duplicated name. 9

I then flatten all the layers on this duplicated version and then resize the image. For general web viewing I usually resize to 1000px on the longest edge.

10 I then flatten all the layers on this duplicated version and then resize the image. For general web viewing I usually resize to 1000px on the longest edge. After the image has been resized, I then apply the final output sharpening to it. I then save it as a jpg file and delete the duplicated version. I do the same process for Print and one difference is that when I am resizing the image, I set the dpi value to 360dpi. The reason why I use 360dpi is because my current Epson Printer (R-3880) has a native resolution of 360dpi. Unless I think I will be making a lot of prints, I will again delete the duplicated version after the print has been made. This may seem like a long winded process but what I am doing is always preserving the Master file which allows me to maintain that nondestructive workflow which I like. One Size Doesn t Fit All Unfortunately with sharpening techniques, it s not as simple as one size fits all especially when your dealing with print as different paper types are going to deal with the amount of sharpening in different ways. Experiment with different methods and strengths. 10

11 Diffuse The panel also has a diffuse section which gives you three different strengths including Diffuse - Low, Diffuse - Medium and Diffuse - High. The diffuse option is used to to effectively render certain parts of the image softer than the rest. This can be used creatively by drawing the viewers eye to a certain part of the image by removing the emphasis from other areas. Typical Workflow Just like most things in Photoshop there are numerous ways to achieve the effect your looking for so just as we mentioned with sharpening, unfortunately there is no one size fits all approach which we can use. I will demonstrate at least two ways in which you can use the diffuse options in your image. Method 1 - Global Diffuse Choose from one of the three available strengths and press the button. This will create a separate Diffuse layer and automatically apply a white layer mask. The white layer mask reveals the overall effect. Set your foreground colour to Black, take a soft brush and start to paint away the areas where you do not want the effect to show. Adjust both the Flow and Opacity rate of the brush to take further control. Tip: If you are wanting to diffuse the background, rather than paint with a brush you can apply a black to transparent gradient on the mask running from top to about the horizon line or anyway you choose. 11

Low Diffuse with Gradient applied to the mask Method 2 - Selective Diffuse Performing a selective Diffuse can be done by making a selection of the area which you want to diffuse with any of the

12 Low Diffuse with Gradient applied to the mask Method 2 - Selective Diffuse Performing a selective Diffuse can be done by making a selection of the area which you want to diffuse with any of the selection tools available in Photoshop and then applying your chosen strength. Tip: When making a selection, adding some feathering to that selection will give a smoother transition towards the edge of the selection. Low Diffuse with Selection (200px feather) 12

13 Examples of Different strengths. Diffuse - Low Diffuse - Medium Diffuse - High 13

Ian Barber Photography Conclusion The Sharpen and Diffuse panel is fully compatible with both Windows and Mac which are capable of running Photoshop CC and Photoshop CC 2014.

14 Ian Barber Photography Conclusion The Sharpen and Diffuse panel is fully compatible with both Windows and Mac which are capable of running Photoshop CC and Photoshop CC Sharpening can be a mine field and although there are literally dozens of ways to do it in Photoshop, the options on this panel offer some of the more common ones and will give you good ground for a starting point. If I was asked to emphasise anything from image sharpening it would be to keep it under control, don t over sharpen elements in the distance, don t sharpen skies, think about your output sharpening and remember.. A little goes along way. 14

15 References I hope you enjoy using the Sharpen and Diffuse Panel and if you have any questions, please contact me via the contact for on the Digital Black and White Website. Digital Black and White Website: Ian Barber Photography Website: YouTube Videos: 15

Central Photography [INSTAGRAM EFFECTS]

Central Photography [INSTAGRAM EFFECTS] 1 1. Open Photoshop. 2. Go to File/New (Ctrl+N). 3. Name your file. 4. Set the Width to 11 inches. 2 5. Set the Height to 8.5 inches. 6. Set your Resolution to 200 pixels/inch. 7. Set your Background Contents