Sharpening photos for AV

Malcolm Imhoff FRPS FACI(M)

The keen-eyed reader will have seen the point of this article, a thorny problem for AV workers. Occasionally we see pictures which are not as sharp as they could be. It could be the result of "camera shake", inaccurate focusing, or sometimes be where images have been used straight from the camera. This is not to be recommended as I explained in Hints and Tips 16 in AV News Issue 214.

Perhaps more common is the opposite effect, over-sharpening. This is often seen in photographs of foliage or textured surfaces such as brick walls, where the overall picture has what I describe as a "gritty" quality. It is also very common in photographs containing elements against a plain sky, such as rooines or mountain crests, where it manifests itself as a white "halo".

These problems may not be obvious on a small computer monitor, but when shown on a big screen at an AV festival or competition and shortcomings will be magnied.

I work with RAW images and I nd that every single picture needs to be looked at, adjusted and, as the very last stage in the process, given a small amount of sharpening. I do not use the sharpening controls in Photoshop as in my version they seem pretty crude. Maybe I'm not using them correctly and maybe Keith Scott could be persuaded to do a feature on how to do it in his Masterclass.

For some years now I have used a separate application for sharpening called Focal Blade. This is available as a plugin or smart lter for Photoshop and forms one of the resources in the "Photowiz" suite of Plugins available from (https://thepluginsite.com/products/photowiz/focalblade/index.htm).

The complete suite is $99.95 while Focal Blade only is $49.95. It is one of the best bits of software I have ever bought, comes with free upgrades, and the Plugin Site is also a treasure trove of other resources, many of them free.

This is a powerful application but you can use it in various modes, as simple or as complex as you wish. The things I like about it are that you can sharpen the edges separately from the surfaces, and quite often I only sharpen the edges. You can quickly switch between "Display" and "Print" modes where for print output the degree of sharpening and the radius are increased. I almost always stick to "Display" mode.

The effects of every adjustment can be seen on the customisable Preview Screen so you can see the result before and after. And if unwanted halos do appear you can use the "Fix" controls to get rid of them while maintaining the desired amount of sharpness. Turn over to see how to use the Focal Blade Plugin.

The PhotoWiz Collection offers tools for correcting, enhancing and restoring digital images. With it even beginners are capable of achieving expert results. It is available for Windows as well as MacOS.

It contains seven plugins for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, PaintShop Pro, Afnity Photo and many other applications. Under Windows you also get six external editors for Lightroom, AfterShot Pro, ACDSee etc. as well as six standalone applications. In addition to the seven commercial products there is also an 8th free plugin package called PhotoFreebies.

In Fig.1 I have created an action to make a new layer called "Sharpen", so my background layer remains intact.

Fig.2 shows the Focal Blade interface where I have applied a small amount of sharpening, mainly to the edges, in "Display" mode.

Fig.3 shows the effect of using too much sharpening in "Print" mode, and the awful white haloes along the skyline.

In

I have used the to get rid of the white halo while keeping the increased sharpness in the rocks.