Sharpening technique using high-pass filter

There are some built in sharpening filters into pretty much every photo editing software, here is process giving you a lot of flexibility!

The Image we will sharpen

Step 1

Duplicate the layer (ctrl + j | Command + j)

Step 2

Goto Filter -> other -> High Pass...

set the value to somewhere between 1-2, just so you can see some contours.
you will get something like this:

Step 3

Change the blending mode of the layer to "Overlay"

Thats it!

Let me know if this was helpful and if further little articles like that would be helpful!

Have fun, Chris

Very interesting, Chris! I played with this for a while and it is very powerful. Thanks for the article!

Thanks Chris, very interesting tutorial, I can tell from your "in those hands" shots that you are a god of photoshop and I'd certainly be thankful for any more tips! I take it that you are not a mac-user? =)

Glad you can use it and see it's power!

I will ;)

I'm just patient ;). I'll try to keep the tips coming, but if anyone has a specific request, let me know and I'll try to whip something up! Mac, whats that? Oh you mean that shiny thing sitting next to my workstation? I like them as laptops, nice to present work on it, but I do the work on my windows powered system (cheaper too)

Cheers mates!

Thanks for that Chris.
Will give this a whirl.

Thanks Chris. I usually use the Sharpen - Unsharp mask filter. But this one is also great. It gives a different result.

Just getting around to reading this. Thanks Chris. In addition, I have found using the soft light or hard light choice helpful at times. Different look to each but depending on the photograph they could be of help also. And remember that you can decrease the opacity of that duplicate layer to soften it some if it is too harsh. I like the high pass filter method much better than the USM. I have read a little bit on using the LAB color space for sharpening also but have not used it. Have been satisfied with High Pass so far.

I tried this on some pictures and and it's really a great effect :)

Thank you all for the great feedback!

Jerry, yea it's all about playing around with different blending modes and opacities. You can also mix different kinds of high-pass layers (with different strength) and then adjust the blending modes and opacities accordingly!

Chris, go on and write this kind of short but very useful articles, i am starting to learn more in PS and your a valuable source

serban

Thanks for this one christopher..nice one this and helped me work even more powerful and with greater possibilities:)
All the best --willy--

I just saw that I didn't wrote here, I was sure that I've did it :-( because I've wanted to...some time ago!
Thanks a lot Christopher, it was,well, it is very helpfull! Hope you'll have the time for more articles. Are very helpfull for photoshop newbies like me.
all the best
Codrin

Hey thanks guys! Glad to hear this...
I'll see with what else I can come up with ;)

cheers!

Thanks Christopher, it's a new technique for me and I'm keen to try it out. Andrew

This works great. I like it easy. ;-)
Thanks.

had heard about this technique but never really knew how it was done. Will give this a try for sure. Thanks

Thank you very much!!!!!! Very powerful!

Greetings Robert

Hey, just wanted to drop a line to thank you Christopher for your time and teaching! ;) I'm a complete noob in ps, so I like when things are clear and easy... and works well ! ;)

Cheers!
Viêt-Tuân

Hey Chris,

I'm new around here (just signed up today) but I'd like to mention the flip side of this. I use almost this same routine for softening portraits.

I use Soft Light blending mode and invert the second layer. Then use a mask to hide it all and brush back in the softened skin where I want it.

Just FYI.

Thanks,

Joe

My 'sharpening technique' is pretty crude:

duplicate the layer
apply unsharp mask (50/5.0/0)
adjust opacity 'till it feels right

I presume this high pass sharpening technique has advantages over the unsharp mask route
anyone care to enlighten me on what they might be?

Christopher

I just tried it out and what an incredibly powerful tool. Thanks much!!!

Very useful. Thanks.

Excellent!

Thank you!

How nice! Thanks. Even I can do this :D

thanks for the tip! very generous of your time!

Thank you............. it works wonders.........:-)))) thankyouthankyouthankyou..........:-)

During i try this i found out a nice colour effect. Push it to 250! And you will see!:-))

Robert

How nice!,,thankyou,,thankyou. ^-^

High Pass filter is a very good tool for sharpening - no question about that...

I do have a small improvement to the process: If you convert the duplicate layer to a smart object before applying the High Pass filter you will be able to go back in and readjust the value. That might be usefull and you don't have to delete the layer and start over again if you don't like the amount of sharpening applied.

When you ar sattisfied with the result just rasterize the layer and you are done.

You might also want to adjust the opacity of the layer for finetuning.

Hey !

Also very effectfull if you set the high pass level to about 10 and choose hard ligth afterwards... !

just for a chance..

It is a very useful technique! If we desaturate the image after duplicating the layer in the beginning, would we get a better result?

yes, that´s cool! Thx!!!

Hi Christopher,
many thanks for your tutorial!
A suggestion for a further improvment: After step 3- convert the highpass-layer to a smart object and use here the adjust function shadow/highlight in all her options. So it's possible to exert more influence to the output of the sharpening process...

Greetings!
Dirk

Thanks. Its very simple and easy.

I use smart sharpen in CS3, this technique done as an addition sharpening is very effective. Thank a lot Chris.

Thank you for your effort and tips!

Great technique
but it can be improve a bit

If you look to the High Pass capture, you will see that it's still in color (a bit not much but still a bit) and this color brings to the final image some colors noise

To avoid this you just have to unsaturate the HighPass layer by using Shift-Ctrl-U
try it, you will love it

Interesting point. You can also sharpen the highpass layer itself to fine tune it. Play around with it, it can be quite effective although it is a step too far for some ;-)

fbaillet, thank you for pointing this out! I'll check it out in a bit ;)

Cheers

Very Good Chris
but what is the difference between highpass and smart sharp or unsharp mask?

Great topic, i find it very useful to me. Thx a lot :)

Is it possible to sharpen only some part of the photo with high pass ?

Sure that is no problem. Assuming you are using PS just follow the instructions above and after that add a layer mask. Fill the layer mask with black (taking away all the sharpening effect. Using a soft brush, paint with white with a low flow (5-10%) in the area you want the sharpening to have effect.

Hi Chris,
i love this technique too! and i use quite frequently..... but the original picture of the skater here i think is better without the highpass filter.....more like a soft painting, I like it a lot!!

thx

Hello,

a word to bring my own tips, as I use this technique very frequently for sharpening :

Noise reduction is of the essence! You can reduce the noise of the original layer with a Photoshop Plug In called "Neat image" (great level of control), and then when you duplicate and apply the high pass, push all the buttons to maximum for noise reduction on the high pass layer itself: you only need the lines, not the content of the flat gray surfaces... It will provide a very smooth effect on surfaces and sharp on edges.

When you select the pixel size, it really depends on the original size of your photograph. Here's a good way to see it: high pass should only let you see the lines at 100% (real size). If you can decrease the pixel size and still see them, well... do it! Otherwise you'll most probably overuse it and never get rid of the noise and the halo effect on sharp contrast (silhouettes, etc.)

Also you can, of course, use masks and layers to apply only where you need, but what I do is select color sample on a wide area (30x30 pixels) to have a perfect sample of the basic gray from the high pass, and use the paintbrush at 20% to decrease the effect by hand with digital pen so as to craft the best possible high pass filter. Then I use masks and opacity to adjust.

Last, I apply this layer with linear light for the sharpest effect. All of the techniques above help reduce the intensity of the effect afterwards.

Hope I wasn't too long in this and enjoy this great sharpening technique! :)

Here is another way and a great tutorial.

http://photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/advanced-photoshop-tutorials/sharpening-in-lab-color/

One more

http://photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/advanced-photoshop-tutorials/sharpening/

This fellow has created a photoshop action for each resizing that one can use.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/726816

Hi Christopher,
Yep, i too use the high pass filter for sharpening in preference to unsharp mask etc. because it gives excellent results if used in moderation.
Another technique i use with high pass is selective sharpening which works well if you want to keep a clean and noise free bokeh on an image where the main subject is fairly well sepperated from the background. (This is simmilar to Thomas Ljungberg's method above but takes a slightly different route)

Make a duplicate layer as usual and use the magic wand to select the areas nearest to the edges of the main subject (set to around 20ish but varies depending on the image and the cleaner the bokeh the easier it is to select) and then use the lassoo tool to select the rest of the background. Having checked that the edges of the main subject are well defined i then use the erasor to completely wipe the background from this layer leaving only the sharp elements of the image (you have to do this because the high pass filter will give some pretty strange results if you don't don't erase it). Then invert the selection and use the high pass filter as usual.
This is a relatively straight forward method that works a treat and i use this for most of my images and even though it can be a bit time consuming i think it works so well in keeping a noise free background that it's time well spent.
I hope this may be of use to some of you and do please give it a try and let me know what you think.
Regards
Vic.

Thnk you very much for share the trick!

I've read an tutorial about skin softening using high pass filter,
it was in my favourites but after format i've lost it,
does anybody know something about that?

Great tutorial and a very easy way to sharpen the image. I've been using a variant of this technique for years with a slight modification. I use the radius setting of 50 pixels in the High Pass Filter and then drop the opacity of the overlay to anywhere between 30-70% . Just gives the image a little "pop" without looking too over done. Sometimes I'll desaturate the overlay to add a slightly more dramatic look to the photo.
Give it a whirl!

J.

I couldn't help but to laugh a bit, when I read that; that was three years ago, and look where you are now :-D

my apologies to the OP, but your sharpening method is a bit crude. sharpening is achieved when you bolster the tones either side of an edge to improve the contrast in the edge. where the tones are color, the colors will be affected to achieve this result.

by far, the best sharpening method is to convert the image to LAB.
select the lightness channel
then USM. for a small image, i recommend 45, 0.8, 4 to achieve a weak sharpen - enough for some pop in the image.
lastly, convert back to RGB.

hope this helps and doesn't tread on too many toes
Michael

I won't speak for Christopher, but no toes treaded on here. But you must realize that when you say "the best" you are just offering an opinion, your opinion. The BEST sharpening technique for any individual photographer/photograph is the one that give him/her a result that he/she likes.

Very valid point, these things are subjective. I would, however, say that I went through the high pass sharpening method years ago and stopped using it due to the effect on the colors to achieve the sharpness.

I probably should have quoted my experience first and the readers can refer to the lab technique I use as another valid alternative :)

Michael

Or, just added an IMO or even an IMHO...

...and Micheal you can use the high pass filter in combination with de-saturate that way it doesn't harm the colours (IMHO)

Interesting!

I have learnt the sharpening method using LAB channel from one of famous Indonesian photographer, Rarindra Prakarsa. If you never heard of him just google his name and check out his work... now go!

Ok done? :)

The reason he sharpen his image using Lightness channel in LAB mode instead of using in RGB mode is because it only effect the Lightness channel and doesnt effect the color channel and therefore it gives a consistency and clarity in the whole sharpening process.

But in high pass method, i think it gives a kind of similarity in using Lightness channel in LAB mode because of the greyish image in the high pass mode. I probably wrong but this is just my opinion.

I would like to suggest a slightly easier way in using high pass sharpening. Instead of blend the layer first and the high pass later why don't you guys try the opposite. Try to blend the layer first and then high pass so that you can immediately see the sharpening result in real time while ypu adjusting the radius level. And oh.. i prefer the linear light blend instead of overlay or soft light.

Greetz,

I would like to ask, if this kind of processing is worth while on a JPEG image? I can't shoot in raw.
Also I would request to present a tutorial for converting the picture into black and white. The selected black and white pictures on 1x are much different from the normal ones.

Thanks.

Nik Silver Efex Pro

and what exactly is that?

That's a complete answer to your request ("Also I would request to present a tutorial for converting the picture into black and white. The selected black and white pictures on 1x are much different from the normal ones.")

This is how and why many black and white pictures on 1X are different. Google it and you'll see this software :-)

Is that a software name? Thanks, I'll look for it. :)

Yes Anna,     http://www.niksoftware.com/silverefexpro/usa/entry.php

I think Phyl might be over generalizing. This plugin is indeed used by many here. But I would advise that  converting color digital images into fine looking b&w's takes practice and skill regardless of the software used. The Nik plugins to come with a collection of presets that serve as very nice starting points but will rarely give you the type of "different" results you cite. That comes with trail and error and some garnered skill.

Clyde, does that mean it'll be more difficult to get that effect with the normal softwares like GIMP etc.?

Well, perhaps it might be helpful for you to show some examples of the b&w's you feel are outstanding. I've never used GIMP but I find that I can come pretty close to the same b&w look in LR 3 as I can in Nik. I don't think any software is an end all or one stop shop. Silver Efex Pro is a plugin for Photoshop and/or Lightroom (I believe they do sell a standalone too) but it depends on the host program for things like RAW conversion. It cannot do layers. The Control Points are circles only which is limiting sometimes. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a damn nice piece of software.

Clyde, you got our names completely wrong! As of the essence of your reply: yes, everything takes skill in photography but sometimes it largely takes just software or it is plain impossible without certain software....

Well, that happens sometimes in the silver haired world!
I think this is the perfect explanation for the proliferation of nuclear looking HDR images and their unexplainable popularity. Yes! That must be it...just throw some software at it, it will look great!!

You know the difference between "largely takes" and "just throw at it", right ;-) ?

Is that a trick question?

Eh, just ever so slightly sarcastic in a friendly way :-)))

Hello Anisha, Good luck!

Thanks, Mr. Millar, I somehow missed this post of yours. I'll peep in the links soon.

I use unsharp mask sharpening in PS, or dfine for this task.

Thank you so much, ... very helpful

Very simple yet very powerful technique... Thanks Chris...