P H O TO S H O P F O R D I G I TA L P H O TO G R A P H E R S

Day Eighteen
Instructor:
Scott Kelby

Todays Lesson:
Sharpening, Day 1
Today we learn the essentials of sharpening using the
Unsharp Mask filter.

Key Concepts:
The main tool we use for shapening photos is the Unsharp Mask filter (found under the Filter menu, under
Sharpen, choose Unsharp Mask).
For the Amount setting, a good range is between 75% and 150%. For images with lots of well-defined edges,
you can use a higher amount (like 150%). For softer images (fleshtones, people, puppies, etc.) use a lower
amount.
A good amount for the Radius setting is 1, and we use 1 most of the time. If you run into a real problem
image, you can increase the Radius to 2, but youll rarely have to use a Radius much higher than that.
A good range for the Threshold is between 0 and 10 (0 applies the greatest amount of sharpening, while 10
makes it have the least effect).
Sharpening is the very last thing we do before saving the file, so do all your other corrections and retouching
before you sharpen, so you do the least amount of damage to your photo. Also, if you apply the filter and it
seems too intense, go under the Edit menu, choose Fade, and lower the Opacity amount.
Keyboard Shortcuts Used:
In todays lesson, I showed how to create your own keyboard shortcut for the Unsharp Mask filter. The
shortcut assigned to it was Option-Shift-Command-U (PC: Alt-Shift-Ctrl-U).
Also, a tip was given thats worth noting: to see a before and after in the Unsharp Mask filter dialog, click
your cursor inside the little Preview window. When you click you see the image before sharpening. When
you release your mouse button, you see the after version.

Additional Material Not Covered In Class:

Although we assigned a four-key keyboard shortcut, you can use something simplier if you dont mind
reassigning one of Photoshops existing commands to Unsharp Mask.