Adobe Photoshop CS6 Top 100 Simplified Tips and Tricks by Lynette Kent

SHARPEN THE PHOTO to correct digital softening
Whether your photos are scanned in or come from a
digital camera, most images can benefit from some
sharpening.
Image softness is inherent to digital capture. The
sensor technology in digital cameras and scanners
automatically introduce softness when recording
images. Digital cameras require a blurring filter in
front of the light-capturing sensor to average the
details into pixels. Most digital cameras then apply
some automatic sharpening during in-camera
processing to counteract the softness. However,
because images are most pleasing when sharp, you
often need to sharpen photos as the final editing step.
Photoshop includes multiple sharpening filters.
However, the Smart Sharpen and Unsharp Mask filters
offer more control than the others. The Unsharp Mask
filter can require more experimentation when printing
because it often displays a stronger sharpening effect
on-screen than when the image is printed at a high
resolution. Because the Smart Sharpen filter has a
larger preview box and lets you control the amount of
sharpening in shadow and highlight areas, it is often
the best filter to use for digital sharpening.
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1 In the menu bar, click Layer ➪
Smart Objects ➪ Convert to
Smart Object.
A The Background layer is
converted to a Smart Object.
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A
2 Click Filter.
3 Click Sharpen.
4 Click Smart Sharpen.
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The Smart Sharpen dialog box
appears.
5 Click and drag the slider to
reduce the default Radius amount
to 0.5 as a starting point.
6 Click the Remove drop-down
menu and select Lens Blur.
Note: Lens Blur finds the edges and
detail and produces a sharper effect
with fewer halos.
7 Click and slowly drag the Amount
slider to the right until you see
halos on the edges.
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