How to get a sharper image
|
This page "Sharper Image" deals with rendering digital photos sharper.
|
Digital photos may need some sharpening because the settings of the camera were not optimal.
A totally blured photo will never be turned into a super sharp shot, of course.
Unavailable details can not be recreated.
But slightly blured edges can be sharpened.
The main case where sharpening functions are very useful is after resizing (resampling) a digital photo.
Resizing digital photos is a necessary operation whenever you want to publish a photo on a web page,
insert it into any written documnent (pdf file, doc file, html file etc...)
or simply if you want to use it as a desktop wallpaper.
After resampling (preferably to resizing),
you will often get the impression that the photo is a touch more blured than expected.
This is where the functions to get a sharper image are most useful.
Nearly every photo editor has at least one function to get a sharper image.
But most of them (even the very expensive ones!) are of bad quality.
I did find a very convenient tool to get a sharper image that uses sophisticated algorithms (internally, don't worry),
and gives probably the best results you can expect.
A different approach to get a sharper image
Current photo editors implement one or even two methods to get a sharper image.
A common sharpness filter with one or even without any setting possibility.
Many also offer the unsharp mask method.
The unsharp mask method normally has 3 settings,
the amount (0 to 200 or even 500), the radius (0 to 100) and the threshold (0 to 100).
That is where the problem begins for most users.
How do you know the ideal value for each one of the 3 settings in the case of your particular photo ?
It's not really intuitive indeed.
You have about 2 millions possibilities and my feeling is that you will easily pass beside the right setting and never find it.
Focal Blade.
takes a different approach.
No obscure settings to get a sharper image.
It asks you:
the intensity of auto-sharpening you wish. Choose among: soft, light, medium, heavy, extreme.
the texture of surfaces,
that means if areas of nearly the same color are textured or not,
if they need to be sharpened too or if only edges need to be sharpened.
Choose among: Even, light, medium, heavy or extreme texture.
the size of details. Choose among: very fine, fine, medium, rough or very rough details.
That's all. Indeed Focal Blade will define 2 sets of values using your input.
One set for edges and one set for surfaces.
This makes this tool unique since you may even extremely blur surfaces while you extremely sharpen edges.
You will also, if you find it is necessary,
be able to modify manually the parameters that the intuitive settings described above did determine.
Easy presets to get a sharper image
You don't even need to select the intensity, the structure and the size of details as described above.
A lot of presets are available.
They are even more intuitive with names like "extreme contour", "copperplate", "stone carved" etc...
You see, while the main purpose of Focal Blade is to help you to get a sharper image,
it is able to do much more than only this.
Many presets will apply some special effects to your photos.
This tool is very convenient for both worlds to get sharper images.
Whether you are a beginner who does not want to deepen the meaning of every settings parameter and only use the presets,
or whether you are an expert who will like it to start with a preset and then fiddle around with each and every parameter,
the tool is for you.
Many additional optional settings parameters like a glowing effect around the edges are available too.
A common problem of most built-in sharpening tools is the fact that they drastically increase the patterns due to jpeg compression.
Comparisons with well known and less known photo editors did show that this problem is much lower with Focal Blade.
Focal Blade.
Focal Blade is a plugin.
A kind of sub program that can be used in any photo editor that accepts photoshop plugins.
(e.g. Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Brush, Ultimate Paint, etc... and of course Photoshop and Photoshop Elements).
Its purpose is to make a sharper image, but many combinations of partially sharpening and partially bluring are possible.
It is better than commonly built-in sharpening functions from any photo editor software.
The algorithms hidden inside seem to be very sophisticated.
