Software - Photoshop Archives - Page 23 of 44

The Essential Photoshop Masking Key Commands

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There are at least two good reasons to become more familiar with Photoshop’s key commands related to masking. First, while many of these functions can be accessed through menu items, not all of them can; these features are essentially hidden to users who don’t know the key commands. Second, key commands that make masking and selections easier and faster.

Here’s a list of the most important Photoshop key commands related to masking.

Option click displays a mask in black and white.

Shift click disables a mask.

Option Shift click displays a mask in red at 50% opacity.

Double click on a mask displays options for changing the color and opacity of mask.

Command click loads a mask as a selection.

Shift Command I click loads an inverted selection.

Shift Command click adds to an existing selection. (gradients add at 50% then 10% increments)

Drag and drop to move a mask from one layer to another.

Option drag and drop to copy a mask from one layer to another.

Delete fills a mask with the Background color.

Option Delete fills with the Foreground color.

Control click on a mask to bring up a contextual menu of options …

Disable Layer Mask

Delete Layer Mask

Apply Layer Mask

Add Layer Mask to Selection

Subtract Layer Mask From Selection

Intersect Layer Mask With Selection

Layer Mask Options …

As masks are often painted, brush key command are useful too.

Numbers change brush opacity. (1=10%, 2=20%, 3=30%, etc)

X to reverses foreground and background colors.

[ makes a brush smaller.

] makes a brush larger.

Shift [ makes a brush softer.

Shift ] makes a brush harder.

What In The World Is Detail Frequency ?

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$refraction73_MG_1171$

High frequency

$refraction74_20100809__ICEjokulsarlon_0148$

Medium Frequency

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Low Frequency

Frequency is a term that’s being used more and more. That’s because new tools offer you more control over frequency than ever before. Noise reduction, sharpening, and HDR all offer unprecedented control over the look and feel of detail in our images. Frequency is used to describe the amount of detail packed into a given area of an image. This is measured by the amount of tonal variation between rows or columns of pixels. Imagine measuring an image with a line that passes across it (horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom). The mean or average tonal value along lines can be charted and then compared to values from other measurement lines, especially those nearest to each other.

3 Things Creative Sharpening Can Do For Your Images

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$Refraction LXIX 2$

Of the three stages in a sound sharpening workflow – capture sharpening, creative sharpening, and output sharpening – creative sharpening is the stage that has the most impact. The goal of creative sharpening is to give an image a specific look and feel. There are at least three things creative sharpening can do for your images.

One, creative sharpening can prioritize; it can direct attention to specific areas of an image.

Two, creative sharpening can enhance; qualitative aspects of images like texture and line, can be amplified to produce stronger responses.

Three, creative sharpening can be used to accentuate different qualities of light; a great deal of detail is carried by the luminosity component of color and changing it changes the overall appearance of light within the image.

Used consistently creative sharpening can produce a distinctive style that is more easily recognizable to viewers. (Remember, sharpening is a way to enhance details and it may also be used with its counterpart blurring to make effects appear even stronger by comparison.)

Creative Image Sharpening – Double Pass Versus Hybrid

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Before sharpening

Unsharp Mask only

Unsharp Mask and High Pass filters combined

Different sharpening techniques make the world look different. A world of difference can be seen between the thin hard line of Unsharp Mask and the broad feathered line of High Pass Sharpening.

Can you choose a combination of both? Yes, you can! You can choose the texture of one, the halo of another, and the line of yet another, applying them either globally or selectively. You can customize the look and feel of detail in any image or image area with astonishing precision and flexibility.

The Advantages Of Sharpening With Photoshop’s Layers

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$1_sharp_refraction_LXXIII1 copy$

2_sharpenedlayerstack copy

Layers have Blend Modes and can be masked

Double click a layer to activate its Blend If sliders

There are many reasons to use layers when sharpening your digital images.

How do you do this? Simply duplicate the Background layer and sharpen the new layer.

Eliminate Saturation Shifts
Layers can be used to eliminate saturation shifts. Change the Blend Mode of a sharpening layer from Normal to Luminosity. Color noise will also be reduced this way.

Capture Sharpening With Lightroom & Adobe Camera Raw

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Adobe Camera Raw's Detail panel

Optimal image sharpening is best done in three stages – capture (Do it during Raw conversion.), creative (Do it in Photoshop.), and output (Automate it.).

This article covers the first stage of sharpening – capture sharpening.

Capture sharpening benefits all images. Capture sharpening compensates for inherent deficiencies in optical and capture systems. All lenses and sensors have specific characteristics and deficiencies. They do not all have the same characteristics or deficiencies.

To speed your workflow, default settings for the best starting point for capture sharpening can be determined for all images created with the same lens/chip combination and saved for subsequent use. To optimally sharpen an image, you’ll need to modify these settings to factor in additional considerations – variances in noise (ISO, exposure duration, temperature), noise reduction settings, and the frequencies of detail (low/smooth to high/fine texture) in an image.

Advanced Creative Image Sharpening Techniques – Double Pass & Hybrid

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No sharpening.

Double pass Unsharp Mask sharpening.

Hybrid Unsharp Mask and High Pass sharpening.

Different sharpening techniques make the world look different. A world of difference can be seen between the thin hard line of Unsharp Mask and the broad feathered line of High Pass Sharpening.
Can you choose a combination of both? Yes you can! You can choose the texture of one, the halo of another, and the line of yet another, applying them either globally or selectively. You can customize the look and feel of detail in any image or image area with astonishing precision and flexibility.

2b_Sharpen_DoublePass

Creative Sharpening With Photoshop’s High Pass Filter

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A low High Pass filter setting.

A high High Pass filter setting.

There are three methods of sharpening in Photoshop that we should all be aware of – luminance, edge, and High Pass sharpening. In this order, the three methods become progressively more complex and go to greater lengths to reduce the accentuation of noise.

To minimize the accentuation of noise, luminance sharpening requires that the filter Unsharp Mask’s Threshold setting be set precisely. When this is not enough, edge sharpening adds a mask that targets the contours of an image, allowing more aggressive sharpening with fewer side effects. Like, edge sharpening, High Pass sharpening (named after the filter used to produce the effect) targets contours in an image, but it does so without the need for a mask; a mask which is more complex to produce. Unlike edge sharpening, the contour accentuation it produces is soft, feathered, and wide. The effect is substantially different and can be used for many creative effects. High Pass sharpening is very similar to the effects of ACR and Lightroom’s Clarity slider, but it offers more control and more varied effects.

Creative Sharpening With Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask

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Precise sharpening can improve almost any image. It helps to know when to apply it, what type of sharpening to apply, how to apply it, and where to apply it.

Forget the filters Sharpen, Sharpen More, and Sharpen Edges. They’re just default settings of Unsharp Mask. Even Smart Sharpen offers few advantages over Unsharp Mask; it’s particularly useful for compensating for trace, but not substantial, amounts of motion blur. My advice? Start with the classic and master it.

Why is a filter that makes images appear sharper called Unsharp Mask? In analog chemical photography, unsharp masks are made with out-of-focus negatives that are registered with an original positive image. During exposure, the blurring adds contrast around contours, making images appear sharper. Digital unsharp mask works the same way, it uses blurring algorithms to add contrast to contours, again making images appear sharper.

What are the ideal settings for Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask filter? There are no ideal settings that will accommodate all images – or image-makers. Settings will be influenced by resolution, ISO, subject, and practitioner. As creative sharpening is primarily an aesthetic decision, individuals are likely to prefer different amounts and types of image sharpness. When it comes to the effects Unsharp Mask generates, there is a general range of believability most viewers share, but whether you play it safe or push the envelope is entirely up to you. You can craft your own sharpening style. To do this, you have to know how the tool works and what to look for.

What are the controls Unsharp Mask offers? Unsharp Mask offers only three controls – Amount, Radius, and Threshold.
What do they do? Amount controls contrast; a higher setting will create a brighter halo, darker line, and contrastier texture. Radius controls how thick halos and lines get. Threshold suppresses the effect in adjacent pixels, base on their relative luminosity; with a very low setting only adjacent pixels that are very close in color will be affected; with a very high setting, many more color values will be affected.

How To Avoid Common Over-Sharpening Artifacts

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over sharpened

You can easily see the artifacts digital sharpening produces by intentionally overdoing it.

Here are the seven most common digital sharpening artifacts.

1         Noise
2         Exaggerated Texture
3         Visible Light Halos
4         Visible Dark Lines
5         Loss of Highlight Detail
6         Loss of Shadow Detail
7         Increased Saturation

These artifacts can be reduced in one or more ways. Here’s a list of options for each.

1 Noise
Raise Unsharp Mask’s Threshold.
Use High Pass sharpening.
Blur High Pass layers.
Mask select image areas.

2 Exaggerated Texture
Reduce Unsharp Mask’s Amount.
Use High Pass sharpening.
Blur High Pass layers.
Mask select image areas.

3 Visible Light Halos
Reduce Unsharp Mask’s Radius to make halos thinner.
Reduce Unsharp Mask’s Amount to make halos darker.
Set the Blend Mode of the Unsharp Mask filter or layer it is applied to Darken.
Use High Pass sharpening for softer more feathered contour accentuation.

4 Visible Dark Lines
Reduce Unsharp Mask’s Radius to make halos thinner.
Reduce Unsharp Mask’s Amount to make halos darker.
Set the Blend Mode of the Unsharp Mask filter or layer it is applied to Lighten.
Use High Pass sharpening for softer more feathered contour accentuation.

5 Loss of Highlight Detail
Use a sharpened layer’s Layer Styles / Blend If sliders to recover it.
Mask the highlights.

6 Loss of Shadow Detail
Use the Blend If sliders in Layer Styles to recover it.
Mask the shadows.

7 Increased Saturation
Change the blend mode of the filter or sharpened layer to Luminosity.
Desaturate High Pass layers.

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