Sharpening your images is a necessary evil, especially when it comes to digital photography, there’s just no work around. There are several ways of doing this, but first let me say that sharpening is often overdone. Seriously overdone. When I see the amount of eye sharpening—and especially in child photography—some people do, it makes me cringe. It looks awful to me and screams fake when you practically crystallize a child’s eyes. Ewww. Yuck. So unnatural. Don’t do that, will you!

That’s not what I want in my photos; I want to enhance my photos, put the emphasis on those parts that naturally draw your eye.

High Pass Sharpening:

The most conventional way of sharpening your photos is by using the unsharp mask filter. It probably won’t surprise you that’s not my way. Being the control freak that I am, I prefer to sharpen on a separate layer by using a high pass technique. It gives me a lot of control. Here’s how I do it.

I like the photo as is, but I just want accentuate the eyes, hair, mouth and the lines near the cheeks a little more. Nothing major.

Press CTRL-J to duplicate your background layer (or via menu: Layer >> New >> Layer Via Copy).  Rename the layer to something like Sharpen.

From the top bar menu choose Filter >> Other >> High Pass

This will bring up the High Pass box. Your photo will turn gray and appear embossed. Don’t panic, I got your back! Let’s set the radius. The higher you go, the sharper the photo will be. I usually stay somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0, with 0.8 being my lucky number, but you’ll just have to play with it a bit to see what works for you.

Your photo is still gray, so we have to set the layer mode to Overlay.

There. Instant sharpening! Depending on how low or high you’ve set the radius, the sharpening will either be very noticeable or more subtle. I lean towards subtle.

Now if you wanted to sharpen your entire photo, you’re all set now. I never do, though; I sharpen selectively. So I’m adding a layer mask.

Click the layer mask icon in your layers palette.

The layer mask is white, meaning the sharpening is visible and you can selectively remove parts by painting on them with a black brush.

I prefer painting the sharpness back in myself. So I press CTRL- I. This will invert the sharpness… hide it, so to speak. The layer mask is now black in stead of white.

Make sure you have your brush tool selected and your foreground color is set to white.

You can set the brush opacity and flow, I’m using 25 – 25. That way I can slowly build up the sharpening, which works better for me than going in full force.

Now start painting the sharpness back in on the parts that can use it. Like the hair, eyes, nose, cheek structure etcetera ectetera.

Or you can paint the sharpness back in using the full brush opacity/flow and decrease the layer opacity in the layers palette. Whatever you prefer, either way works. That’s it, you’re done.

Cheat Sheet:

* Press CTRL-J to duplicate your layer
* Rename your layer
* Choose Filter>>Other>>High Pass from the top menu bar
* Set the radius
* Set the layer mode to Overlay

Optionally:

* Click on the layer mask icon in the layers palette
* Press CTRL-I to invert the layer mask
* Use a white tool brush (Opacity/Flow 25) to paint the sharpness back in 

Because I’m really sweet and all that (grins), I took the liberty of creating an action for you. It’s a 0.8 sharpener with an inverted mask so you can start painting in that sharpness straight away. Have fun with it!

You can download it right HERE!

Tags: adobe photoshop, free action, high pass, photo editing, photography, photoshop tutorials, sharpening