Thursday, August 16, 2012

Adding Sharpness to Make Your Photos Pop



This is my first post in a new series of photography and editing tips and techniques I'll be sharing. These will be mostly easy tips to get the extra
oomph out of your photos.

In today's example we'll take a look at adding sharpness to your photos in post processing. I use Adobe Photoshop for my post processing which has a simple but powerful tool for adding sharpness to your images. If you are not using Photoshop, be sure to check your programs features, as most modern photo editing programs include some sort of sharpening tool. If you take a look at the example I have included you'll see the left image with no sharpness applied is quite soft and lacking detail compared to the right image with post-sharpening applied.

Click to view large

In order to sharpen your image in Photoshop, open your image and choose Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen and a box will pop up with several options. Typically I leave amount at 100% and adjust my radius anywhere between .7 and 1.8px depending on the image. You can check the preview box and simply adjust these sliders until you have a nice sharp image. Be careful not to overdo it however.

This simple adjustment will help make all of your photos pop and stand out. Please shoot me a message with any feedback on this tip or let me know if there's any questions you'd like to see answered in future pieces.