Selective sharpening

You can sharpen part of your image instead of the entire image by using a mask or a selection. This is useful when you want to prevent certain parts of your image from being sharpened. For example, you can use an edge mask with the Unsharp Mask filter on a portrait to keep the facial skin soft looking but sharpen features like the eyes, mouth, nose, and outline of the head.


Using an edge mask to apply the Unsharp Mask only to specific features in a portrait

To sharpen a selection:

1. With the image layer selected in the Layers palette, draw a selection.
2. Choose Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Adjust the options and click OK. For information on setting the Unsharp Mask options, see Using the Unsharp Mask filter.

The image area within the selection will be sharpened, leaving the rest of the image untouched.

To selectively sharpen an image using an edge mask:

1. Create an edge mask.

There are many ways to create an edge mask. For more information on creating masks, see About masks (Photoshop) or experiment with the following method:

• Open the Channels palette and select the channel that displays the grayscale image with the greatest contrast in the document window. Often, the green or the red channel will be the one you select.

Showing a channel with the greatest contrast
• Duplicate the selected channel.
• With the duplicate channel selected, choose Filter > Stylize > Find Edges.
• Choose Image > Adjustments > Invert to invert the image.

Find Edges filter applied and image inverted
• With the inverted image still selected, choose Filter > Other > Maximum. Set the radius to a low number and click OK to thicken the edges and randomize the pixels.
• Choose Filter > Noise > Median. Set the radius to a low number and click OK. This averages the neighboring pixels.
• Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur to feather the edges.

Note: The Maximum, the Median, and the Gaussian Blur filters soften the edge mask so the sharpening effects will blend better in the final image. Although this procedure recommends using all three filters, you can experiment using only one or two.

• Choose Image > Adjustment > Levels and set the black point high to get rid of random pixels. If necessary, you can also paint with black to retouch the final edge mask.

Set the black point high in Levels to eliminate random pixels in the edge mask
2. In the Channels palette, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the duplicate channel to make the edge mask a selection.
3. In the Layers palette, select the image layer. Make sure the selection is visible on the image.
4. Choose Select > Inverse.
5. With the selection active on the image layer, choose Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Set the desired options and click OK. For more information on setting the Unsharp Mask options, see Using the Unsharp Mask filter.

Note: You can create an action to conveniently apply all the steps in the procedure.

Website Hosting
Get a Domain Name
Search Engine Optimization
Email Marketing

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials