Sharpening a photo
The Sharpen tool allows you to sharpen all or parts of your photo using a technique based on the tradition of using an unsharp mask in a darkroom to increase the perception of sharpness by emphasizing edges.
Most digital photos have a slight softness in the fine details and would benefit from sharpening.
To sharpen your photo:
- Click the sharpen tool button in the tool bar. (A new sharpen tool will appear at the top of the tool stack.)
- Use the sliders to adjust the sharpness:
- The Amount slider controls how much sharpening is done.
- The Radius slider controls how widely the sharpening effect is done around each pixel.
- The Threshold slider controls how different each pixel must be from its surrounding area before it is considered an edge pixel and therefore sharpened.
- Optionally:
- Create a mask using regions.
- Select a different blend mode.
- Adjust the Opacity slider.
- Make a color/luminosity selection.
Note: It’s best to be viewing your photo fully zoomed-in before sharpening it by selecting View > Actual Pixels.