[Hacker]

I thought I'd cobble together this quick tutorial for high pass sharpening, a method I now use all the time having stumbled across it some months ago. The difference I notice is that it introduces little or no noise to the image unlike USM. If you have a noisy picture to start with I have found that by applying this method, then Noise Reduction (I use Neat Image) and again applying the High Pass sharpening it gives pretty good results although obviously you will have to experiment for yourselves.

1. Open your image as normal, this one was picked at random from a recent show and has just been converted from the RAW file. Hit Control + J to give you a duplicate layer.



2. Go to Filter > Other > High Pass and the image will go grey, don't worry this is normal! Set the pixel slider at 10, this appears to give the best and most consistent results for me and I never bother to deviate from it.



3. On the Layers Palette click on Blending Modes (the small box just above the top layer, it should say Normal) and select Hard Light. You can select Soft Light or any other one that you wish but as before this is the one that works for me.



4. You will now notice that the image looks very sharp so it now time to reduce that a bit, go to the Opacity tab and make your reduction as necessary, anything from 20-70% is recommended. I've set up an action recording this and when I recorded it I entered 35% as it was usually about the right amount. If after using the action I need to change it, for example to sharpen even more, I go to the History tab and select Master Opacity Change and increase or decrease as required.



Finally, flatten the image and you're done!

Hope this helps.

[Steve]

Cheers for that Hacker. It is always handy to know different methods of sharpening

[MiG Eater]

Tried this last night, and what an amazing effect it has! I've tried other methods, and this has to be the easiest and most powerful I have found to far.

Thank you!

[Photoman7mc]

Ialso tried this agree about results

[Whipspeed]

I'll have a look at that this weekend after I've been out to another race & give it a go. Thanks for the tips.

[Angela]

Ummm...when you say "flatten the image" could you explain that to the photo-manipulation impaired please!?

[silkstone]

Originally Posted by Angela

Ummm...when you say "flatten the image" could you explain that to the photo-manipulation impaired please!?

= Merge all the layers into one.

[IanHoughton]

Originally Posted by Angela

Ummm...when you say "flatten the image" could you explain that to the photo-manipulation impaired please!?

He means to flatten all the layers down into one.

Layer > Flatten Image (Photoshop)

[Angela]

Thank you!

[Dave]

Always good to try something else. Tried this on shot of my daughter at 1st riding lesson, shot at ISO1600 (indoors). Compared to Smart sharpen or USM it has a distinct advantage of not making noise worse, but I did find it produced a subtle halo round riding hat vs medium background

Have you looked at 100% on any of your shots Colin to see if you get same effect ??

[Dave]

Had a quick play with this . Here we have 100% crop at ISO1600, so some noise to test this out. I have shared original, 2nd shot is run through Smart sharpen at 180%, 1 pixel, then Noiseware for portrait. 3rd shot is as per high pass described here with opacity taken down to 20% (optimum I could find), then same noiseware step.



It's hard to see the differences side by side, but I had the different version in layers, so I could click one off to see the difference. Doing this showed a noticeable difference between high Pass vs Smart sharpen ...... the halo to left of hat became more pronounced & definition started to be lost. In this example I would have to say I would prefer a little more noise & keep the tones / detail of the Smart Sharpen method. It's almost like the High Pass method gives a higher contrast shot at the edges, but at the loss of detail Obviously this is just one test, so not conclusive.

Would be interested for others to try it out & report back. Also Colin , as you have used extensively, what have your tests been like ?

[Les Meehan]

Hacker

Nice clear tutorial about a useful method, however...

Dave

Your test results confirm my own feelings and experience (from a few years back, wrote about this in my second book) about the high pass method, i.e. it reduces fine detail and creates halos. This is because the high pass filter eliminates low frequency noise i.e. fine detail, and so does not sharpen areas of fine detail but actually seems to mush them up. USM (in whatever guise) is definitely a better option for images containing a lot of detail. This is also why images with digital noise look better with HPS, the noise is mushed up too!

As I said, a useful tool but only on appropriate images. But hey, if it suits the photographer go for it!

Cheers

Les

[Boofers]

Thanks Hacker, have used this before, and the comment about noise and so on is correct, as it has worked for me when the picture seems to have some distance for the subject. I will use a contrast adjustment in noise ninja for my many play pictures, sence they seem to be very messy with detail. I like the high pass method, be it has it's place,"like maybe a spider web taken with a very very thin DOF and surrounded by blurrrrrr. Don't forget, you can paint in the grey layer to enhance the sharpening affect.

[j sotelo]

good to know tried on a picture I had of a friend surfing and it worked great.