Why does Elements have 2 forms of sharpening?

[Kermit power]

Hi All,

I use Elements 5 for processing images. Once I've done the RAW processing, cropping, sharpening and the occasional bit of blemish removal are about the only things I usually end up doing in Elements, which leads me on to my question...

What's the difference between "Unsharp Mask" and "Adjust Sharpness"? They seem to do the same thing as far as I can make out?

[Cabinet Enforcer]

Kermit power said:

Hi All,

I use Elements 5 for processing images. Once I've done the RAW processing, cropping, sharpening and the occasional bit of blemish removal are about the only things I usually end up doing in Elements, which leads me on to my question...

What's the difference between "Unsharp Mask" and "Adjust Sharpness"? They seem to do the same thing as far as I can make out?

I forget the technical differences, but UnSharp Mask is a lot more flexible, eg try a USM with a large radius, say 40 or 50, it alters the look of the pic quite differently to normal sharpening.

[andy-xr]

From what I've found playing with it, Unsharp Mask is selective as to what it'll sharpen whereas Sharpen and Sharpen More go blanket on anything and everything

[VxDuncan]

andy-xr said:

From what I've found playing with it, Unsharp Mask is selective as to what it'll sharpen whereas Sharpen and Sharpen More go blanket on anything and everything

Aye, sharpen and sharpen more are simply presets for the USM.

[Kermit power]

OK, so Elements appears to have at least 3 forms of sharpening then!

Adjust sharpness is not the same as USM, nor is it the same as Sharpen. Seemingly you can choose different blurring algorithms or something, and can also use it to address motion blur. Still not totally sure though!

[Major Bloodnok]

There's a series of articles here that covers more about sharpening than you'll ever want to know.

[andy-xr]

Dont forget you've got RAW sharpening before you open the image as well, then the Unsharp Mask in the Editor as well as sharpening tools. Then plugins

And still somehow my images are a little soft

I am actually thinking of giving up on RAW for a while, I've used it as a complete Get out of Jail Free card to help with lighting, but there's so much work to do to tidy up. I should just shoot jpeg and learn what I'm doing properly

[paul911]

andy-xr said:

Dont forget you've got RAW sharpening before you open the image as well.....

Eh! I thought raw was unprocessed,

[Simpo Two]

andy-xr said:

I should just shoot jpeg and learn what I'm doing properly

Uh-oh...

paul911 said:

andy-xr said:

Dont forget you've got RAW sharpening before you open the image as well.....

Eh! I thought raw was unprocessed,

I think he means the sharpening applied in the process of converting to JPG. You don't change the RAW file.

I apply a default sharpening in the RAW > JPG stage, but IMHO you only need to sharpen again if you subsequently revisit the JPG and resize the image.

[andy-xr]

Simpo Two said:

andy-xr said:

I should just shoot jpeg and learn what I'm doing properly

Uh-oh...

Perhaps I'd better justify that one. I should stop using RAW as a reason not to take time to expose/WB my shots properly and then fix it later

[Kermit power]

andy-xr said:

Simpo Two said:

andy-xr said:

I should just shoot jpeg and learn what I'm doing properly

Uh-oh...

Perhaps I'd better justify that one. I should stop using RAW as a reason not to take time to expose/WB my shots properly and then fix it later

I'm not convinced about that...

Unless you're actually going to measure white balance against a grey card for each and every shot, then it is effectively a subjective measurement, and surely whatever you do in the camera itself is unlikely to better just shooting on Auto then correcting it if necessary on a nice big computer monitor later?

One thing of which I am 100% certain though is that I wouldn't want to give up the flexibility of variable exposure in RAW, even if it's only to increase the degree to which I can hand hold in low light!

[havoc]

I THINK...

- Unsharp mask looks at 'points' of high difference in colour/exposure and increases the contrast on either side of that 'line' to increase the perceived 'line' to the eye.
- Sharpen works in a slightly different manner...can't remember exactly what, but it increases noise.

[Major Bloodnok]

It uses a slightly blurred negative image (hence "unsharp") to cancel some of the low-frequency information in the original image, emphasising the high-frequency information.

Wiki article