TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit
Submitted by mitch on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 16:58.
The TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit is a set of JavaScripts for automating Photoshop CS and later that makes it easy to obtain professional sharpening of your digital images. The scripts in the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit can be used for sharpening RGB, CMYK, L*a*b, and grayscale images.
Feel free to download my tutorial and visit my learning gallery for useful information about sharpening generally. The toolkit includes a 24 page, full color PDF manual that is ready for printing.
The recommended workflow is three-pass sharpening.
The first pass should be done right after RAW conversion with the TLR Capture Sharpening script. This is, arguably, the most important round of sharpening for an image. The goal is to restore the sharpness lost during digital capture. Be careful not to get too aggressive during this round of sharpening. You select the type of capture device (high resolution digital camera, film scan, etc.), a mask width, and adjust a couple of sliders. The script does the rest. If you are the sort of photographer who likes full control, just select "Expert Mode" and you determine all of the settings.
Capture sharpening is done with a layer mask to limit the effect to the edges in an image when you select Unsharp Mask (USM) as the method. TLR Sharpening Toolkit gives you another option: the enhanced edge mask generates the most well-defined edge mask. If you select Smart Sharpen as your the method, no edge mask is used.
The second pass is optional. It is called "Creative Sharpening." You use the TLR Creative Sharpening script. The idea here is to apply localized sharpening. You can also apply localized blurring to deemphasize elements in an image.
For creative sharpening, you can use Smart Sharpen or USM sharpening. Both add a Hide All layer mask. If you choose USM, a Luminosity blend is applied. If you choose Highpass, an Overlay blend is applied. Use a soft edge brush with white foreground color to paint in the sharpening (or blurring). A low opacity (e.g. 20 or 25 pixels) is recommended.
The TLR Creative Sharpening script also will optionally apply Haze Reduction to the image. This is a great feature that I apply to nearly every image. It uses a technique I learned from Michael Reichmann (http://www.luminous-landscape.com) called Localized Contrast Enhancement.
The third pass is output sharpening. You select the intended output device and desired resolution and the TLR Output Sharpening script applies Highpass Filter sharpening with an Overlay blend. Output sharpening is global, except for the extreme highlights and shadows, which are protected with Blend If settings.
The TLR Capture Sharpening and TLR Creative Shapening scripts also include surface sharpening. Typically, you will confine all/most of your sharpening efforts to the edges in your image. However, there are times where you will want to sharpen surface detail.
Be warned! These scripts do A LOT of processing. With large image files -- like those from film scans, the Canon 1Ds MkII, Canon 1Ds, and Nikon D2X -- the scripts can take several minutes to run. All of the work is done non-destructively, with as many as three or four layers. Canon 1Ds MkII images start out at nearly 100MB. Add several layers and you can easily end up with images that are 650-750 MB in size. I routinely end up imges that large -- just from the sharpening passes. Assume 1GB of RAM at a minimum for images 8MP and larger; 2GB of RAM will give much better performance. The PDF manual has suggestions for getting the most efficient performance with these scripts.
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TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit Versions for CS2 and CS3
Photoshop has provided limited user interface support to its scripting interface in each version since Photoshop CS. This means that the TLR scripts have versions specific to Photoshop CS, CS2, and CS3. Support for Photoshop CS4 will be available soon.
Photoshop CS2 version is here:
http://www.thelightsright.com/files/tools/tlrprofessionalsharpeningtoolk...
Photoshop CS3 version is here:
http://www.thelightsright.com/files/tools/tlrprofessionalsharpeningtoolk...
PDF File for TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit
The .PDF file is a separate download.
www.thelightsright.com/files/tools/tlrprofessionalsharpeningtoolkit/tlrp...
Mitch, Happy New Year!!
Mitch, Happy New Year!! Thanks again, for all you do to make the scripts and actions. I tried the new versions (scripts) you updated today. I kept getting java script errors when running the updated version (CS4) of the Web Output Sharpening script. Running CS4 on Windows XP. I went back to the earlier version for CS3 and it ran without any trouble. Tho't you should know.
Bryan
Web Sharpener Is Fixed
I had a bug report for the Web Sharpener script. It's been fixed. The link will download the new version.
Using ACR Clarity adjustment before TLR Capture Sharpening
I decided long ago that I preferred to use the TLR Capture Sharpening rather than run CS3 ACR's own capture sharpening as I perceived the TLR masking to be superior. I have recently bought a Panasonic LX3, and find the rather flat raw images definitely seem to need having added Clarity adjustment, compared to the Pentax K10D raws I have been used to dealing with. As Clarity is basically Local Contrast Enhancement, and so a form of USM sharpening as is the TLR Capture Sharpening, is it sensible to use this before TLR capture sharpening? Possibly it would better to use ACR sharpening instead when Clarity adjustment is used? Please advise.
Terry
Re. Using ACR Clarity adjustment before TLR Capture Sharpening
Hi Terry!
Thanks for using the comment system. I really appreciate it. :)
Capture sharpening in ACR 5.2 is much improved.
I do agree that you will have more control over capture sharpening, if you do it in Photoshop with the TLR capture sharpening actions or scripts.
If you want to apply the equivalent of the ACR Clarity adjustment, the latest version of the TLR sharpening actions and scripts replace Localized Contrast with Clarity Adjustment. Instead of USM with high radius and low amount, these new scripts/actions mimic the Clarity adjustment in ACR. They use High Pass sharpening with a high radius and Blend Ifs that concentrate the effect on the midtones.
http://www.thelightsright.com/node/307
If you do use the ACR Clarity adjustment slider, I would recommend that you also use the capture sharpening in ACR. In that case, I would strongly urge you to open the photo as a Smart Object in Photoshop. That way, you can go back and adjust the settings later, if you find they were too aggressive.
Web Sharpener became more agressive
Hi Mitch,
First of all thank you for the great job that you've done!
Could you please clarify what's changed in the Web Sharpener so it looks more agressive now thanin version 2.0?
Thank you,
Alex
Re. Web Sharpener became more aggressive
Hi, Alex. I don't recall making any adjustments to the sharpening settings for the Web sharpener. However, you can easily modify the effect. This "tip" from a few weeks should help.
http://www.thelightsright.com/AdjustingTLRSharpeningEffects
I also have a video on the same topic.
http://www.thelightsright.com/AlteringSharpeningEffects Cheers, Mitch
Re. Web Sharpener became more aggressive
Hi Mitch. Thanks for prompt reply :) Settings in scripts looks similar, but results differs noticebly. I'd be happy to have old look by default if possible. Sorry if I wasn't crear enough in the first post. Please follow below link which explain what I mean: left image sharened with Web sharpener 2.0 only 480px, second - 3.0a.
http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=exampleq.jpg
Thank you. Alex
Re. Web Sharpener became more aggressive
The difference in the layers palette reflects the more efficient use of Smart Filters in the most recent version of the TLR Sharpening Toolkit.
The sharpening settings and Blend If settings are the same between the version 2.0 and 3.0 for the Web output sharpeners. I just checked.
Version 2.0
// Defaults for Blend If Sliders
const lightBlendIf = [0, 0, 235, 250, 90, 90, 250, 250];
const darkBlendIf = [8, 16, 235, 250, 0, 0, 90, 90];
// Defaults for Highpass Filter Settings
const settingsHighpassFilter = [0.7, 0.7, 0.6, 0.6, 0.5, 2.5];
// Defaults for USM Filter Settings
const settingsUSM1024 = [150, 0.8, 5];
const settingsUSM800 = [135, 0.9, 5];
const settingsUSM600 = [100, 0.9, 5];
const settingsUSM480 = [85, 1.0, 5];
const settingsUSM250 = [85, 1.0, 5];
const settingsUSM100 = [500, 3.0, 5];
Version 3.0
// Defaults for Blend If Sliders
const singleBlendIf = [8, 16, 235, 250, 0, 0, 250, 250];
// Defaults for Highpass Filter Settings
const settingsHighpassFilter = [0.7, 0.7, 0.6, 0.6, 0.5, 2.5];
// Defaults for USM Filter Settings
const settingsUSM1024 = [150, 0.8, 5];
const settingsUSM800 = [135, 0.9, 5];
const settingsUSM600 = [100, 0.9, 5];
const settingsUSM480 = [85, 1.0, 5];
const settingsUSM250 = [85, 1.0, 5];
const settingsUSM100 = [500, 3.0, 5];
You might be using different slider settings between the two versions.
If you prefer, you can continue to use the version 2.0 scripts.
Cheers,
Mitch
Version 1.0b Update for CS3/CS4 Sharpening Scripts
The update to the Photoshop CS3/CS4 version of the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit scripts is now available for download.
This is version 3.0b (12 March 2009). The update fixes a problem when processing Grayscale mode photos. With version 3.0a, when a Grayscale photo was sharpened, the UI would display the Blend If sliders. This occurred because the scripts were applying a Luminosity blend, which is not a supported layer blend mode with Grayscale images. The scripts now run without user intervention on Grayscale mode photographs.
8-bit conversion
Mitch:
I notice that both the scripts and the actions effect a mode change to 8-bits. Does this affect the 16-bit depth of the original image; that is, does the original image remain at 16-bits throughout the entire sharpening process?
Also, what are the relative merits of the scripts vs. the actions? If you've already dealt with this issue at length elsewhere, could you please provide me with an appropriate link?
thanks,
gollywop
Re. 8-bit conversion
The sharpening actions and scripts do not make a mode change to 8-bits per channel. If the photo starts in 16-bits when the action/script runs, it remains that way.
I favor editing 16-bits per channel.
I have very few action sets that make an 8-bits per channel conversion, and that is only done when a particular Photoshop filter is required that operates only in 8-bits per channel. That's not the case at all with the sharpening actions/scripts.
Mitch
Scripts v. Actions
I find actions to be more convenient. You can make them without writing any code. You just record the steps to accomplish some task.
Editing them is a sore trial. I have a recent series of videos called Actions Basics. You can find them on the Videos page. They include a walk-through of the steps for editing actions.
Actions have a limited programming model. For example, there is no conditional programming. Actions just run from start to finish. No detours.
You can do very sophisticated things with actions. Scripts let you do a lot more. You can react to events, read properties, and then have the script behave accordingly.
Scripts can have their own UI, although creating that UI is a slow and painful process. I would have written far more scripts, if there was a good visual editor for programming the UI for scripts.
Re. 8-bit conversion, More Discussion
OK. I see where the confusion lies.
The mask actions make a duplicate of the file. The duplicate is converted to 8-bits per channel.
This has no adverse effect on the photograph. The duplicate is used to make a mask, which is copied back. All masks are 8-bit grayscale representations. The mode for the photograph being sharpened is not altered in any way. ;)
The reason for the duplicate, 8-bits maneuver is to reduce RAM requirements and speed the process of mask generation. The generationn of masks is what takes the most time with the capture sharpening scripts, and this maneuver reduces it significantly.
Fear not! If your photo is 16-bits, your sharpened photograph will still be 16-bits. ;)
Update to TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit (3.0c)
I posted an update today. The scripts are now L*a*b compatible.
There are just two exceptions:
I also disabled the Blend Ifs for the TLR Creative Blur script based on user feedback.
Thank you, Mitch, for
Thank you, Mitch, for putting efforts in continuous development of such a great toolkit :) Keep it up!
pixels vs. ppi
Mitch: I just started using the web output sharpening. I notice that its versions are graded in pixels rather than ppi. Am I to assume, then, that one picks an action (or script) whose pixel value comes in the ballpark of the web image's pixel size rather than its resolution?
thanks, gollywop