USM Starting Point Pleeeze.....

[Gilly B]

I read on one of these threads the other day a passing comment on enhancing and finishing a photo in PS. The person said something like - ...and finished with a USM pass of amount 10, radius 25 and threshold 0. OMG have I been getting that wrong. My figures have been more like A 150-200, R 0.8-9 and T about 3.


Is there a tutorial on the starting point for USM and an explanation as to the effect of each category. I tend to just tweak things until they look right to me. Have I just been damn lucky?

Could you peeps on here give me your examples of the starting points you use and what are some typical figures you ended up with.

I tried the figures from what I read on the thread and they are brilliant compared to my best efforts of guessing.

Look forward to your responses with my wacom pen and tablet on the starting block and ready to try them out. GO....

 

[muaythai]

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tools/TLRProfessionalSharpeningToolkit.pdf

Gives a good rundown of USM

Muaythai

 

[CT]

I read on one of these threads the other day a passing comment on enhancing and finishing a photo in PS. The person said something like - ...and finished with a USM pass of amount 10, radius 25 and threshold 0. OMG have I been getting that wrong. My figures have been more like A 150-200, R 0.8-9 and T about 3.


Is there a tutorial on the starting point for USM and an explanation as to the effect of each category. I tend to just tweak things until they look right to me. Have I just been damn lucky?

There's a few tutorials on USM sharpening in the Tutorials Section, but those figures you quote from the thread sound about right. I don't think you've been lucky, because ultimately sharpening is about using your own good judgement about when to stop. The secret is to apply USM in small amounts until the image is just starting to get that pitty over-sharpened look and/or sharpening halos start to appear - most noticeabley around areas of adjoining light and dark contrast. When that happens just go Edit/ and undo the last sharpen.

You may need to apply USM several times - as much as 8 or 9 times depending on the image, but always be prepared to undo that last step if it starts to look too much.

 

[Gilly B]

http://www.thelightsrightstudio.com/tools/TLRProfessionalSharpeningToolkit.pdf

Gives a good rundown of USM

Muaythai

Thanks for the link. I have just printed it out and will now grab a cuppa T and do some reading.

CT - 8 or 9 times! I have n-e-v-e-r sharpened it more than once. This is where I am probably going wrong, by trying to do it in one go. I will have a better understanding of USM and the term I hear you Profs using 'High Pass' when I have read the 24 page doc just printed out. There goes my afternoon. Thanks guys.

 

[CT]

LOL. Most editing packages have a one shot sharpen filter which you can sometimes get away with, sometimes it's too savage and other times you can still use USM after the one shot filter -it all depends on the image, but USM is the way to go for fine control.

Don't even think about using the 'Sharpen More' filter.

 

[Janice]

I used to use USM but now I find smart sharpen is pretty good.