Post Production Tips and Techniques
* DO NOT just post links to other sites in this thread. This is for presenting your version of how you do your post production, so do the work and make up a decent tutorial.
Giving credit for an idea is fine if you need to, just make sure that you don't go overboard. Remember, this is Flash Kit.....a RESOURCE on the web, let make this thread a destination.
Smart Sharpen Filter Tutorial.
So this will be my first tutorial.....here goes.
I have completely stopped using the Unsharpen Mask filter in favor of the Smart Sharpen tool and I am going to tell you why. With the Smart Sharpen filter you can save your settings and you can selectively sharpen highlights and shadows independently, enabling you to apply more sharpening without producing massive amounts of haloing.
What is haloing? Well, it is not playing some Xbox game until the tips of your fingers are bleeding. No, Haloing is the light ring that is caused by sharpening images digitally. You can mostly see it in high contrast areas, like where the horizon line meets.
Once you have your image edited the way you want it duplicate the main image into another layer. I'll show you why in just a few...
Below are the most typical setting I use now when sharpening photos. Set the Remove method to Lens Blur, it produces the least amount of haloing in my experience. Now select the More Accurate checkbox because you want the most accurate rendering of your image you can possible get. The most powerful feature of the Smart Sharpen filter is the ability to control highlight and shadow sharpening individually, so check the Advanced button and get ready to unleash some real sharpening power.
http://www.evpohovich.com/images/tut.../Picture-6.jpg
Now you may want to experiment with the settings some, but the settings above seem to work in most cases for me. The Tonal Width and Fade Amount tend to reduce the amount of sharpening when increased so play around with them. Right now you are looking to get things as sharp as you want, so don't be afraid to over do it a tad, we'll take care of that next.
Photo prior to sharpening:
http://www.evpohovich.com/images/tut.../Picture-1.jpg
Photo after sharpening:
http://www.evpohovich.com/images/tut.../Picture-2.jpg
Getting rid of the Halos
Remember when I told you to sharpen you image on a new layer? Well, here's why. Create a Layer mask on the sharpened layer. Now, grab the Paint Brush tool and select a small size soft brush and simply mask out the halos letting the untouched layer show through. Bye bye halos. The below image show, in red, what I masked out.
http://www.evpohovich.com/images/tut.../Picture-3.jpg
And now the image with the halos removed:
http://www.evpohovich.com/images/tut.../Picture-4.jpg
Just remember that sharpening should be one of the last steps in your workflow. Why? When you reduce the size of an image to fit on a webpage you lose most sharpening, resizing is a rather destructive process.
Tabbed Browsers make it very easy to see image changes. Simply open the above images in new tabs and then change from tab to tab to see the difference in each image.
-------------------------------------------------
Below is the final image with the Soft Light Layer Setting Dodged and Burned layers turned back on.....but that is for another tutorial. ;)
http://photos.evpohovich.com/images/...3_img_8970.jpg
EXIF Data on the Blog.
High Pass filter..alternative way to sharpen photos
This tutorial is explaining how to use the High Pass filter to sharpen your shots in a more 'decent' way than the other sharpen tools in Photoshop do...
open your image in Photoshop...
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/1.jpg
duplicate your background photo by dragging it on the icon left from the Recycle icon in the Layer window...
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/2.jpg
click Filter in the menubar and scroll down to Other>High Pass...
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/3.jpg
an adjustment menu opens...push the slider to max. 3.5...click OK...(be careful not to push it too hard as the result might look oversharpened)
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/4.jpg
click the drop down menu in the Layer window showing blending modes for the High Pass mask...try 'Soft light' or 'Hard Light' whatever is matching your needs...
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/5.jpg
back to menubar>Layer>Flatten Image...
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/9.jpg
This is what you get!
top=original
bottom=result (I used 'Hard Light' for better demonstration)
http://ajs-design.de/SDB/High%20Pass/compare.jpg
Enjoy!