I read an occasional comment in forums like Photography-on-the.net, DPReview.com, or RetouchPro where someone says they like the TLR sharpening tools but sometimes the effect is too strong or not strong enough.

The sharpening actions and scripts in the various TLR sharpening tools share some common features for adjusting the effects. I spent months creating the presets in the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit, but I knew they would not be perfect for every photograph. The actions in the TLR Sharpening Toolkit and the new TLR Landscape Sharpener and TLR Portrait Sharpener are even more likely to need some adjustment.

1. The settings were designed to be general purpose. No setting is perfect for every photo.
2. Monitors vary, which will affect perceived sharpness.
3. Output devices vary. Te output sharpening scripts fit broad categories, like inkjet printers. Users have a lot of choices among printers, paper, ink, and viewing conditions. All will affect perceived sharpness.

So I knew that the settings had to be flexible, and I designed the TLR sharpening scripts and actions with flexibility in mind.

Adjust Opacity

You can easily adjust the Opacity setting for the layer. Most of the TLR sharpening actions and scripts set OPacity to 65%. This gives you editing headroom to increase or decrease the perceived sharpening effect.

The Opacity setting will have a strong effect, especially when you want to reduce the sharpening effect.

Adjust Layer Blend

Some sharpening effects, like High Pass sharpening, depend upon the selection of an appropriate Layer Blend. The customary choice for High Pass sharpening is an Overlay Layer Blend. If you change the Layer Blend from Overlay to Soft Light, the sharpening effect will be attenuated. Change it from Overlay to Hard Light and the sharpening effect wil be intensified.

Adjust Mask Width

The actions in the TLR Sharpening Toolkit use medium width edge and surface masks. This works well for most photos. The TLR Edge and Surface Masks action set and the TLR Professional Mask Toolkit give you more mask options. A narrower edge mask sharpener fewer pixels. A wider edge mask will sharpen more pixels.

Selective Sharpening

If the sharpening is too excessive for just some features and not others, you can use the Photoshop Brush tool to paint the effect out. The TLR creative sharpening scripts and any of the TLR sharpening tools for Photoshop CS3/CS4 include layer masks that can be edited. The example below shows the layer mask from the TLR Landscape Sharpener.

You can use the Photoshop Brush tool with Black as the foreground color. Set the Brush Opacity to something like 20 or 25%. Then selectively paint out the sharpening effect.

Adjust Smart Filter Settings

Photosho CS3 added the Smart Filter feature and the TLR sharpening actions and scripts use it for added flexibility. Just double-click on the filter effect you want to adjust and the diaog will open.

Adjust Blend If Settings

The TLR sharpening actions and scripts use Blend If settings from the Layer Style palette to focus their effects on the middle tones and "roll them off" the extreme shadows and highlights.

Adjusting the Blend If sliders will have a very strong effect on the final sharpening effect. Moving the Hghlight sliders outward will have the biggest visual impact. It can result in rather scary sharpening halos as more and more pixels approach 255 in brightness. Pulling the sliders inward will further constrain the sharpening effect. The separation between Highlight sliders or the Shadow sliders controls how well the sharpened pixels blend in with unaffected pixels. This can also affect perceived sharpness.

Underlying Layer determines which pixels in the layers underneath are candidates for sharpening. Adjusting the Shadows and Highlight sliders for Underlying Layer will make more or fewer pixels available for sharpening. Making more pixels available for sharpening will intensify the final sharpening effect. Making fewer available will lessen it.

This Layer determines which pixels in the final layer changed. The Highlights and Shadows slider here allow you to limit how far pixels can be altered by the sharpening effect. In the example above, any pixels that are pushed beyond 240 or below 16 remain unchanged. This protects the extreme highlights and shadows, which keeps the sharpening halos from becoming so intense.

There is another benefit to the Layer Style palette. You can adjust Layer Opacity, Blend Mode, and the Blend Ifs simultaneously, if you prefer.

I hope this helps you get more out of the TLR sharpening tools.

Feel free to ask for more information or to leave comments or suggestions.

Enjoy!

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