One of the most regularly asked questions we get asked here is what is the best way to sharpen a photo in Photoshop? There are many many different ways to sharpen images in Photoshop using various tools, filters and layering techniques. Below we’ll take a look at a relatively simple and one of the most effective ways to make your portraits super sharp.
When it comes to portrait photography black and white really takes some beating. There is something about black and white portraits that really focuses the attention on the subject and makes them more dramatic. So as a little bonus in the example below we’ll also convert the image to black and white as well as sharpening it up.
As mentioned above one of the easiest, as well as most effective ways to sharpen a photo in photoshop is to use the High Pass filter. The big benefit of this filter over others is that it only sharpens the edges of things in the photo (or what photoshop thinks are edges – areas of high contrasting tones). I’ve tried a few of the other techniques for shapening and always find I come back to the high pass filter for it’s effectiveness and ease of use.
Sharpening Tutorial Workflow
Ok, so below is the image we are going to sharpen up, As you can see it is reasonably sharp however the focus is probably on the mans jumper on top of his head. Due to the big aperture (f2.8) the eyes are ever so slightly out of focus. Hopefully by sharpening to image in photoshop we can sharpen the eyes up a little to ensure his wonderful stare pops a little more.
1.Duplicate the layer
First I open up the image and duplicate the layer. You can do this by either dragging the layer to the new layer icon or by using one of the following shortcuts.
Windows shortcut: Ctrl + J
Mac shortcut: Command + J
2. Set the blending mode to ‘Overlay’
Next set the blending mode to overlay. You can do this by selecting ‘Overlay’ in the Blend Mode options drop down in the Layers dialog box.
3. Add a High pass filter
With the duplicated image selected we want to add a High Pass filter. To do this select Filter > Other > High Pass.
You’ll be presented with a preview box with a slider at the bottom that will allow you to adjust the radius value of the filter. The radius you need/want to select will vary depending on the resolution of the image you are processing.
Play around until you get an effect that works. I usually start off with something between 3 and 9. The higher resolution image you start with the more effective the sharpening. Be careful though as it can be easy to overdo this effect.
4.Change image to B&W
Next we want to turn the image to Black and White. While there are a number of ways we can do this here I used the gradient map. Navigate to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map. On the slider that appears bring in the bottom two sliders towards the center point. This makes the dark tones darker and the white tones lighter, increasing the overall contrast of the image. Hit ok and you should have a pretty good improvement on the original…
5. Fine tune the sharpness
One easy way to adjust the amount of sharpness in the final image is to alter the opacity of the high pass layer. To do this simply alter the Opacity % which appears at the top right side of the layers palette, next to where you changes the Blend mode to Overlay.
By reducing the opacity you’ll reduce the effect of the sharpening on the finished image. You can see the difference this makes by looking at the image below where I reduced the opacity of the layer with the high pass filter to just 10%, as opposed to the photo above where it is set to 100%.
I think for this shot about 60% Opacity on the high pass layer seemed to work best. It’s very much a personal choice but as I said earlier it is easy to over do effects such as the high pass so I always err on the side of caution. So here is the finished sharpened portrait….
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