Unsharp Mask versus Adjust Sharpness

[Stanley]

Hi everyone,

The following is a big topic, I understand, and something often considered, I imagine.

If you want to correct a somewhat blurry or somewhat out-of-focus photograph, is it better to work with the Unsharp Mask or Adjust Sharpness?

Thanks.

Stanley

[Wendy]

Hi Stanley ..

If the photograph is very bad but important enough to want to try rescuing I generally try out both methods ... sometimes one works best and sometimes the other.

It really depends on the individual image :)

Wendy

[TonyW]

I agree with Wendy - if you have a really bad image or want a special effect like haze reduction then the Unsharp Mask is useful but for just touching up the sharpness of a normal image then Enhance Sharpness is the best - but make sure you have it set to Lens Blur (or motion blur if that's what caused the blurring). Adjust Sharpness is the same as Smart Sharpen in Photoshop - but you just get the Basic and not the Advanced panel (so don't get a choice of being able to sharpen highlights, midtones and shadows separately). Strangely the default is Gaussian Blur and that's the same as the Unsharp Mask so make sure you change it before doing a comparison.

Do a google search for Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen and you'll find lots of comparisons and the general conclusion is that Smart Sharpen is better.

Tony

[Stanley]

Thank you for the replies. Very helpful and instructive.

Stanley

[frank abramonte]

A good way of increasing the perception of sharpness is to sharpen the black only.
This of course necessitates that you can convert to CMYK, apply unsharp mask, and then back to RGB.

[BobWarren]

Alternatively, duplicate the image on a new layer and set the blend mode to Luminance before you sharpen.

[annc]

How about the High Pass filter?