TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
Submitted by mitch on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 00:13.
The TLR Professional Sharpening Action Sets is the latest sharpening tool set from The Light's Right. It is not just one action set but a whole collection of Photoshop action sets for applying the multipass sharpening technique described in the TLR eBook and DVD video tutorial on sharpening, Sharpening Your Photographs.
There are action sets for capture sharpening, creative sharpening, and output sharpening, and the sharpening is tuned for different categories of digital cameras, scanners, and printers.
Capture Sharpening
Capture sharpening should be done right after RAW conversion with one of the TLR Capture Sharpening actions. This is a critical round of sharpening for a photograph. The goal is to restore the sharpness lost during digital capture. Be careful not to get too aggressive during capture sharpening.
The capture sharpening action sets have five versions, each tuned for a different class of digital camera or scanned film:
- low resolution digital cameras (LRDC) for photographs 3MP and less,
- medium resolution digital cameras (MRDC) for photographs between 3MP and 8MP,
- high resolution digital cameras (HRDC) for photographs over 8MP,
- small film scans (SFS) for film such as APC and 35mm,
- and large film scans (LFS).
Within each action set, you can select edge mask sharpening, surface mask sharpening, and combined sharpening. You can select four different mask widths.
Capture sharpening is done with a layer mask to limit the effect to the edges of a photograph. For most photographs, you should select a medium width edge or surface mask. The wide width is designed for more diffuse subjects with larger and softer edges.
(Example of wide width edge mask)
(Example of medium width edge mask)
(Example of narrow width edge mask)
(Example of extra narrow width edge mask)
The TLR Capture Sharpening actions give you another option: the use of an enhanced edge mask generates the most well-defined edge mask. Enhanced masks take longer to generate than the more traditional luminosity edge mask that you read about in many general books about Photoshop, but they also define edges that a luminosity edge mask would miss. To use anhanced masks, you'll need to modify the capture sharpening actions in the three places highlighted below:
How do these capture sharpening actions compare to the scripts in the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit? The new sharpening actions have the default settings used by the scripts.
CAUTION! If you use any of the TLR Capture Sharpening actions, be sureto load the TLR Edge & Surface Masks action set. A copy is included with the TLR Professional Shrpening Actions collection
Creative Sharpening
The creative sharpening action set includes clarity enhancement, creative sharpening for the five sources (LRDC, MRDC, HRDC, SFS, and LFS), portrait sharpening, landscape sharpening, and texture sharpening.
Creative sharpening tuned for source is unique to these new actions. Even the scripts in the current version of the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit do not do that. This keeps the Radius setting for USM consistent across capture sharpening and creative sharpening.
Output Sharpening
There are four output sharpeners, each tuned to a different output medium or device:
- halftone printer
- continuous tone (contone) printer,
- inkjet printer,
- and Web/multimedia.
There are output sharpening actions for a wide range of image resolutions, paper types, etc.
The output sharpening action sets use the same methods and settings as the output sharpening scripts in the TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit. It also means that everything is consistent with the settings and techniques in the eBook/Video Sharpening Your Photographs.
Adjusting the Sharpening Effects
I spent months developing the settings in the various actions that are included in the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions collection. I knew, however, they would not be perfect for every photograph. There are no "magc" settings for sharpening that are ideal for every photograph. The sharpening effects from the actions in the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions collection are easily modified.
You have six options for adjusting the effects:
- Adjust layer opacity
- Adjust layer blend
- Adjust mask width
- Selective sharpening with layer masks
- Adjust Smart Filter settings
- Adjust Blend If settings
All six options are described with more detail in the TLR Tip, Adjusting TLR Sharpening Effects.
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Update to TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
I posted an update to the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions Collection today.
This is version 1.0b, dated 7 December 2008.
Fixes:
-- TLR Creative Blur action called layer style action from
a previous action set. This has been fixed.
Please report any bugs, issues, or suggestions!
Most important, enjoy!
Awesome!
Mitch,
many, many thanks for the hard work you are putting into this action set. Just started to play around with it, and I am hooked already. Great work!
Thorsten
Tip and Video Added
I added an HTML tip with lots of illustrations that explains how to adjust the visual effects of the TLR sharpening tools:
http://www.thelightsright.com/AdjustingTLRSharpeningEffects
In addition, I produced a 15 minute Quicktime video that walks viewers through adjusting the visual effects of the sharpeners:
http://www.thelightsright.com/AlteringSharpeningEffects
Cheers,
Mitch
TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit.
Wow! What a difference. Thanks so much for this great Toolkit. One question though. I like to run Noise Reduction before I get to anything else and I see you recommend using a surface mask for NR and say, "Inverting a layer mask results in a surface mask" . How do I invert a layer mask to achieve a surface mask?
Re. TLR Professional Sharpening Toolkit
Running noise reduction first is smart. Using a surface mask is really smart.
You have a couple of choices. You can make a copy of the edge mask. Then apply the Image|Adjustments|Invert. The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl/Cmd + I. You should apply a 1 pixel Gaussian Blur to the new mask.
You can also use the TLR Professional Mask Toolkit or the TLR Edge and Surface Masks action set. They have scripts/actions to make surface masks that are ideal for noise reduction.
http://www.thelightsright.com/tlrprofessionalmasktoolkit
http://www.thelightsright.com/tlredgeandsurfacemasks
selective sharpeng
How do i selectively sharpen parts of an image useing a brush to paint it on it said in the manual,cant seem to access this tool Rob
Re. Selective Sharpening
Hi, Rob! Welcome to The Light's Right. :)
You use one of the creative sharpening scripts. These scripts create a layer mask. You then use the Brush tool to adjust the effect.
By default, the current versions of the TLR creative sharpening actions and scripts use a Reveal All layer mask. That's a layer mask filled with white. So you should see a marked increase in sharpening immediately after you run of the creative sharpenign tools. You can then use the Photoshop brush tool to reduce the effect.
To do that, you select the Brush tool. I recommend you use a soft-edged brush. Set Opacity on the options bar low. I recommend something like 20-25% for lots of control. Then make sure the layer mask is active by clicking on it. After that, you can paint on the photograph and watch the sharpening effect begin to diminish.
There is a "tip" that briefly discusses selective sharpening with a layer mask. The video on altering sharpening effects has a demonstration. You might want to watch that.
http://www.thelightsright.com/AdjustingTLRSharpeningEffects
http://www.thelightsright.com/AlteringSharpeningEffects
Update to TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
I posted an update today to the actions in the TLR Profesional Sharpening Actions collection. This is a maintenance release to fix action steps that were inadvertently turned off in the TLR Creative Sharpening (Portrait) action. The new version is 1.0e for all action sets in the collection.
Click here for update.
Update for TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
This is a maintenance release. It fixes the layer group names applied by the Web output sharpening actions. In the previous version, all were labeled as 1024 pixels. Now they have names for their respective sizes.
The new version is 1.0f
Click here for the update.
Update for TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
I posted a maintenance update tonight for the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions colllection. This adds separate actions for using Enhanced masks. Users no longer have to turn steps on/off to switch between the traditional luminosity masks and TLR enhanced masks.
Update for TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
I posted a maintenance update today for the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions colllection. This fixes an unreported bug with the 800 pixel Web output sharpener. Layers were not being added to the new layer set. That behavior has been fixed.
Update (1.0i) for TLR Professional Sharpening Actions
This is a maintenance update that is really only significant for users of the TLR Professional Sharpening Actions panels. One of the actins included a trailing space in its name. That has been removed.
Compatibility: Photoshop CS3, CS4 -- Not CS2?
Will this set of actions work in CS2?
Thanks in advance for your assistance.
Re. Compatibility
No, these actions are not comaptible with versions of Photoshop prior to CS3. They are optimized to use Smart Filters layers, and those were introduced in CS3.
There is a set of actions that are compatible with older version of Photoshop. The TLR Sharpening Toolkit. You can find it here:
http://www.thelightsright.com/tlrsharpeningtoolkit