Enlarging images part five
Ivan | Thu, 2005-05-05 08:47One thing that can help your enlarged images to look better is increased contrast for the blury details. One of the best ways to do it is to use the high-pass filter.
Duplicate the layer with your image (Apple-J). Select Filter/ Other/ High Pass from the menu. Choose a radius for the filter. The higher the number the more intensive the effect of the operation will be. You may need to experiment between 2-8 pixels to see which one gives you the best effect for your paricular image. The high pass filter removes low-frequency detail in an image and has an effect opposite to that of the Gaussian Blur filter.
Finally you should select one of the following layer blending modes for your new layer: Overlay, Soft Light or Hard Light.
You can download the PSD for this tip below and find the previous posts about enlarging and improving images here: part one, part two, part three and part four.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| highpass_flower.zip | 771.08 KB |
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what's the difference between unsharp mask filter and this technique?
Unsharp mask is a very rough formula, basically increasing contrast is specific areas which can destroy details in your image the same way as brightness and contrast filter does. High-pass combined with overlay doesn't oversaturate the colors as much as unsharp mask, neither creates the undesired halo effect that you get by overshaprening.
I like to use Bruce Fraser's method that combines this technique (high-pass plus Soft or Hard Light) with an inverted, blurred Find Edges layer mask that isolates the sharpening to edges only, to avoid sharpening noise and grain. Also, y'all should check out the new Smart Sharpen filter in Photoshop CS2 as it allows separate sharpening control over highlights and shadows and avoids some of the problems of Unsharp Mask.
Great thanks! Well... I discover photoshop every day.
I agree with sharpening only the edges. I do a lot of short-run printing through out my day and I find that the standard highpass/overlay can oversaturate an image for print(not on screen).