How I sharpen digital images for sharing on Photrio

Several people have asked me to provide a quick tutorial on how I sharpen images for Photrio. It all came about due to a great image that PhotoBob uploaded that looked unsharp. I knew having seen PhotoBob's work in real life that his image would have been tack sharp. The problem was he didn't know how to sharpen the image prior to uploading. I took the liberty of downloading his image and applying the technique I thought would yield the best results for that particular image. The improvement was very noticeable.

The method I used is best suited to images that have distinct edges. It's also great for portraits where you want the hair to look more natural and not all mushy.

As I mention in the video there are a number of ways to sharpen an image and each procedure has its uses but sharpening images should not be considered a one size (technique) fits all. That's part of our craft, learning what works for a particular image and the presentation you want.

I have to apologize to Sean, I kept referring to Photrio as PhotoRio. Bad Eric, bad!

So here it is I hope you can follow along, I'm not a professional voice over instructor lol.

ic-racer said:

This should be flagged as DIGITAL or the name of the thread changed. I clicked expecting a tutorial on unsharp masking and was severely disappointed.

Click to expand...

I've updated the title. I'm leaving it open workflow due to the nature of it helping the community when sharing analog work on the site.

Thanks @Eric Rose !

ic-racer said:

This should be flagged as DIGITAL or the name of the thread changed. I clicked expecting a tutorial on unsharp masking and was severely disappointed.

Click to expand...

Here's an article on USM I wrote several years ago you may find interesting. http://www.frontiernet.net/~fshippey/articles/article4.pdf

USM is great for some images but not all. Thanks for sharing, the more tools in your tool chest the better.

Eric, Thank you for taking the time and putting this together for us!

I use High Pass as well. By the way, nice Alberta accent... almost like Saskatchewan accent but we tend to say eh more...eh

If you like to be even more finicky, one could desaturate the overlay to eliminate colour artefacts and one could even apply USM (advanced) to the layer and after flatteneing apply more USM (advanced) till you nail your preference without ripping the file apart. All can be put in a script so one click. I think the sharpening should be done last when the output size is known.
As they say many ways to skin a cat.
Thanks Eric & Prof_Pixel for the effort of making this available.

ic-racer said:

This should be flagged as DIGITAL or the name of the thread changed. I clicked expecting a tutorial on unsharp masking and was severely disappointed.

Click to expand...

Frankly, I don't see a problem. Posts of this kinds were always allowed on APUG to help members present their images here in the best possible light. By the way, life is full of disappointments. Most of us deal with them and become more resilient as a result. Others can't cope and resort to whining. If you have a problem with the post, report it to the moderators and let them decide. It's their call.