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 TLR Sharpening Toolkit

This is the original sharpening action set from The Light's Right Studio: a Photoshop action set that make it easy to obtain professional sharpening of your digital images. TLR Sharpening Toolkit is a Photoshop CS action set for sharpening RGB, CMYK, L*a*b, and monochrome images.

Feel free to download my tutorial and visit my learning gallery for useful information about sharpening generally and using the TLR Sharpening Toolkit.

The recommended workflow is three-pass sharpening. The first pass should be done right after RAW conversion with one of the Capture Sharpening actions. 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.

Capture sharpening is usually best done with a layer mask to limit the effect to the edges in an image. TLR Sharpening Toolkit gives you three options for the edge mask: luminosity boundaries, color boundaries, and enhanced boundaries that merge luminosity and color boundaries. The enhanced edge mask will likely give you the most well-defined edge mask.

You can use Highpass Filter or USM sharpening. Highpass Filter sharpening uses an Overlay blend. You can change the layer blend to Soft Light for a softer effect or Hard Light for a stronger effect. There are two USM choices: Single Contour and Dual Contour. Single contour uses a Luminosity blend. Dual contour provides for separate sharpening of light and dark pixels. The Dark Contour uses a Darken blend. The Light Contour uses a Lighten
blend.

Capture sharpening is limited to the midtones with Blend If settings.

The second pass is optional. It is called "Creative Sharpening." 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 Highpass Filter 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 third pass is output sharpening. You can choose from Highpass Filter or USM sharpening with Luminosity or Overlay blend respectively. Output sharpening is global, except for the extreme highlights and shadows, which are protected with Blend If settings.

You will also find a set of actions for 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. Having separate actions for edges and surfaces allows you to apply more aggressive sharpening to the edges and less aggressive
sharpening to the surfaces.

The available actions include the following:

Capture: Highpass Luminosity Edge

 Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and a luminosity edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: Highpass Color Edge Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and a color edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: Highpass Enhanced Edge Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Luminosity
Single Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a luminosity edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Luminosity
Dual Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a luminosity edge mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Color
Single Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a color edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Color
Dual Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a color edge mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Enhanced
Single Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) edge mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Enhanced
Dual Contour Edge		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) edge mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.

 

 

  
Creative Highpass Creative sharpening using Highpass Filter. Hide All layer mask is applied. Use a soft brush with low opacity and white foreground color to paint in sharpening where desired.
Creative USM
Single Contour		 Creative sharpening using USM sharpening. Hide All layer mask is applied. Use a soft brush with low opacity and white foreground color to paint in sharpening where desired.
Creative USM
Dual Contour		 Creative sharpening using USM sharpening. Hide All layer mask is applied. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Use a soft brush with low opacity and white foreground color to paint in sharpening where desired.
Localized Contrast Enhancement Creative sharpening using USM sharpening. Reveal All layer mask is applied. This sharpening uses high settings for Amount and Radius to enhance image contrast. Excellent for haze reduction in landscape photography.
Creative Blur Creative blurring using Gaussian blur. Hide All layer mask is applied. Use a soft brush with low opacity and white foreground color to paint in sharpening where desired.

 

 

  
Output Highpass Output sharpening using Highpass Filter. No layer mask. Blend If settings protect extreme highlights and shadows.
Output USM
Single Contour		 Output sharpening using USM sharpening. No layer mask. Blend If settings protect extreme highlights and shadows.
Output USM
Dual Contour		 Output sharpening using USM sharpening. No layer mask. Blend If settings protect extreme highlights and shadows. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels.

 

 

  
Capture: Highpass Luminosity Surface Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and a luminosity surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: Highpass Color Surface Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and a color surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: Highpass Enhanced Surface Capture sharpening using Highpass Filter sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Luminosity
Single Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a luminosity surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Luminosity
Dual Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a luminosity surface mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Color
Single Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a color surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Color
Dual Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and a color surface mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Enhanced
Single Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) surface mask. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.
Capture: USM Enhanced
Dual Contour Surface		 Capture sharpening using USM sharpening and an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) surface mask. Separate sharpening for dark and light pixels. Blend If settings limit sharpening to middle tones.

 

 

  
Luminosity Edge Mask Generates a luminosity edge mask.
Luminosity Surface Mask Generates a luminosity surface mask.
Color Edge Mask Generates a color edge mask.
Color Surface Mask Generates a color surface mask.
Enhanced Edge Mask Generates an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) edge mask.
Enhanced Surface Mask Generates an enhanced (combined luminosity and color) surface mask.

 

 

  
Separate Luminosity Generates a luminosity separation for mask generation.
Separate Color Generates a color separation for mask generation.

 

Current Version: 2.0l
Date: 23 December 2005
Size: 504 kb
Contents: Photoshop .atn file, ReadMe.pdf

Download the TLR Sharpening Toolkit action set.

Need help with actions? Download Action Basics here, a PDF tutorial on using actions.

 





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