May 04
Enhance your photos by using the High Pass Filter
2005 at 05.46 am posted by Veerle
No I’m not talking about the CSS here, but Photoshop. You have this Filter called High Pass which can be very helpful to sharpen your images.
Especially if you have resized your images then this filter does wonders in no time and it gives you a great sharpening control. This is what you need to do:
- duplicate the layer that contains your image and make sure it’s on top of your original (drag layer onto layer icon in the Layer’s Palette)
- select the duplicated layer and go to Filters > Other and choose High Pass Filter
- choose a value using the slider (I’ve used 4 for my example)
- change the Layer Mode of your duplicated layer to Overlay, Soft Light or Hard Light
Afterwards you can always decrease the effect (if needed) using the transparency slider in the Layer Palette or you can mask certain areas to keep them from sharpening. In other words it gives you total flexibility.
Want to learn more?
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1
Nice tip; I use un-sharp mask (found in the sharpen menu) for a similar effect. Also works for crisping up images after resizing.
2
Thanks veerle, very handy tip.
3
I’ve used the following technique:
1. Size your photo.
2. Change from RGB to LAB color.
3. In the “Channels” pallet, select the “lightness” layer.
4. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen (or Unsharp Mask...)
5. Change back to RGB
Things will look crisper…
4
I read about this technique in a magazine years ago, and have been using it ever since. Apart from sharpening edges without creating too much noise, youcan also use the eraser to remove parts of the highpass layer, giving you alot more control over the image.
5
I’ve also been using the unsharp mask to do the same thing. I decided to do a little comparison between the two methods, and found that the high pass method actually produces better results. The colours maintain their saturation, and the image looks deeper. It’s a subtle difference, but enough for me to switch.
6
Wow. I’m getting much better results than just a standard unsharp mask. That goes down as trick of the week for me…
7
Veerle, this is genius. And Dean, I will also try out that trick. And to think I’ve thought the be-all and end-all of sharpening was fiddling with the unsharp mask. Perhaps you could make an action of this and have people download it? (cause we’re so lazy....)
8
Wow. Please keep things like this coming! Awesome.
9
Cameron Moll had a post & discussion about unsharp mask & highpass filter sharpening. See Please, sweat the small stuff
I am not totally dedicated to either method. The method I use depends on workflow & time. For print work, I always Bring Color in Gamut ->Lab Color -> Unsharp Mask on the Luminosity channel -> CMYK.
The highpass filter on a luminosity layer produces excellent results. I like the ability to mask and finely control the sharpness.
10
Great trick, thanks Veerle!
11
Download Actions for PS7 and PSCS
Lea - I knocked up some actions for anyone who wants them. I concur this does work better than unsharp.
Thanks I’ll be using this from now on.
12
hello, this ism y first comment here. just wanted to thank you for the tip.
13
Veerle you rule the world
14
I did something like this for Newsprint to increase color saturation in poorly lit photos (which most event candids are).
Newsprint tends to make things muddier than normal, so super high contrast helps when the image is printed. Otherwise it’s a mess of brackish ink.
The actions are here:
http://www.boboroshi.com/backlog/2004/09/hello_muddy_pho.php
15
That’s an awesome tip!
I often use unsharp mask with the settings:
Amount: 500
Radius: 0.2
Threshold: 1
This provides fairly good sharening without too much damage. But I gotta say. Your high pass filter technique has rocked my world!
Thanks
16
This is such a cool technique, as i was oblivious to it. :) It’s so cool to see the image afterwards and realize how blurry it really was! Works very nice with pics from my digital camera. Thanks!
17
Nice tip, Veerle, and thanks to all the others for adding their tips as well. Definately one to save for future use.
It’s always easy to pick the most obvious tool in a paint program, and I have always used ‘sharpen’ to sharpen an image, but it’s rarely been satisfactory, so these tips are good.
The other tweak I usually have to make is brightness of the image. Some images look great on an Apple Cinema display, but look dull as dishwater when viewed on a poorer quality monitor.
steve@lazymouse
18
See, this is why i always like to be back at your blog. Always something to learn. Is there more where this came from? ;)
19
Effectivement, c’est une astuce à laquelle nous ne pensons pas et qui s’avère très efficace… bien vu !
20
This is a usefull tip!
If you have Photoshop CS2, try the new Smart Sharpen. It gives amazing results with some simple clicks.
Another ‘photographic’ method:
Duplicate the layer that contains your image and make sure it’s on top of your original.
Apply unsharp mask on the copy (go for some extreme settings, we will adjust later).
Set the layer blending mode to Darken.
Duplicate that copy and make sure it’s on top of the first copy.
Change the layer blending mode to Lighten for this second copy.
By changing the opacity for the 2 new layers, you are in total control.
21
Might I ask what pixel based font you are using for image? yeah where it says “high pass filter”.
Thanks for the tip.
22
Glad to hear these positive reactions and other ideas.
@Erwin, yes sure there is even for the new CS2.. but patience my friend :-D
@anon, this seems to be a popular font since people keep on asking me ;-) It’s standard 07_57. I bought this font from miniml fonts.
@Patrick, how the hell did you get your copy so soon ... it’s not shipping yet :-S At least not here in Belgium. Mine is pre-ordered ;-)
23
I use the same technique as Dean (the unsharp mask) but now I will consider this one.. great tip!
24
Veerle, I am in Belgium (Brussels) and had CS2 delivered on Friday.
25
@Kim, really! You lucky b*st*rd :-D I just realize that I’ve also (pre)ordered other software (FinalCut Studio) and that it will be shipped once everything has arrived.
26
...and I thouhgt I knew Photoshop tricks!
Thank you. I will use it.
27
“...and I thouhgt I knew Photoshop tricks! “ <-ditto
I just spent the last hour doing this to a ton of photos. Thanks for the tip!
28
Hi, there is a website I read alot called creative pro. They have 3 excellent articles on photo sharpening techniques. The first link is a quicky guide, the others are more indept.
Quick Guide: Two-Pass Sharpening in Photoshop
Out of Gamut: Thoughts on a Sharpening Workflow
“Very detailed” Out of Gamut: A Two-Pass Approach to Sharpening in Photoshop Hope this helps
29
Sweeeeeeeeet. This is a huge helper. You rock.
30
Such a quick an easy tip, yet I’m sure it will have such a long lasting effect on the many who read it. Great way to reward your readers :).
31
Wow, this thread here has given me plenty of ‘sharp’ ideas. :D I’m always looking for new ways to reduce the artifacts of resizing and JPEG compression, so I’ll add these to my cheat sheet. One method I sometimes try (which I picked up from Macworld a few years ago): duplicate the layer, Filter: Noise: Median (radius less than 5); Filter: Blur: Gaussian Blur (radius 1) to soften the edges created by Median; Filter: Sharpen: Unsharp Mask (500%, radius 1, threshold 0); adjust transparency of layer to 50% or less. At this point you can flatten the image and work with sharpening it in other ways. I find it works better with images intended for print (especially grayscale), because any remaining artifacts are only seen at “actual pixels” size, and are further lost when broken up into tiny dots on paper.
32
Just a slight variation which I now use and worth a comparison----
duplicate image
desaturate, ( image>adjust >desaturate )
Hi pass ( around 2 )
auto levels,(image>adj.>auto adj.)
blend to softlight
adjust opacity.
don,t hesitate to experiment with the options
33
Further to my previous post, maybe I should add---
duplicate from image>duplicate, then go to layers and drag the blue hilite area down to the icon beside the rubbish bin. The first duplicate gives you a full size image for later comparisons, the second for layers work. Desaturate. Hi pass, slide it to 1, then use the keyboard up/down arrows to adjust. when the dark outlines start to get a white outline, you are working near the extremes. Don’t forget the next is auto levels, you will see an automatic adjustment. Then alter mode from normal to softmode and adjust the opacity. Try the other modes, each will have a different effect on different images.
After that if anyone is interested, there is a method called selective sharpening, ideal for hi lighting small areas such as eyes, jewelery, lips etc.
34
Just something new again (I previously added some links to sharpenig tutorials see above: “dcc - May 10, 05 | 10:14 pm")
In Photoshop CS2 which I don’t have and have not tried, I see they have a new ‘smart sharpen’ function. Adobe claim this is really awesome… can anyone share their experience on this?