'Sharpening' Photos...........

[SimonV8ster]

What effect does 'sharpening' photos have when printing ?? I can see the difference on screen but does it give the same effect once printed out ?
Can you over sharpen and then the printed photo looks like it has been tampered with ?

[Scho]

SimonV8ster said:

What effect does 'sharpening' photos have when printing ?? I can see the difference on screen but does it give the same effect once printed out ?
Can you over sharpen and then the printed photo looks like it has been tampered with ?

print will look less drastic than screen. still be carefull!

i'd avoid sharpening portraits too much.

[AlfaFoxtrot]

Bear in mind that when you sharpen in PS you're supposed to do it at 100% zoom - so if you're printing out at 6x4 from a DSLR it's probably quite hard to tell. I've seen on several places that you should sharpen the image as much as you want on the pc screen, and then add a bit if it's going to get printed. Tbh the photos I've got at 6x4 are fine even without sharpening (forgot to do it on some) and it's only on the larger prints that it will become obvious if over done.

[Beyond Rational]

Very basic query; how does sharpening in PS actually work?

[Zad]

Photoshop has various sorts of sharpening. Most popular is Unsharp Mask, which effectively produces a slightly blurred copy of the original, and subtracts it.

[RobDickinson]

Beyond Rational said:

Very basic query; how does sharpening in PS actually work?

Effectivly trying to increase contrast between areas, or draw black lines round stuff..


Your supposed to sharpen specificaly for the task, web sized image, full size, print etc all require different levels of sharpening.

[Major Bloodnok]

More than you'd ever want to know here (part 1 of 6 articles).

Includes a technique that put the sharpening info onto separate layers, so you can vary it according to purpose.