Oct 11
24
Freaky Detail – Free Sharpening Action
10 Comments
Ok, so here’s a great free sharpening action for Adobe Photoshop CS5. It’s based on a technique shown by Calvin Hollywood. He’s a BOSS.
Many sharpening techniques can totally ruin an image by creating halos, gritty and noisy textures, killing shadow detail, and making little kittens cry (this can totally happen). This is an example of a bad sharpening job:
Bad Sharpening Technique
Take ACTION – see how to sharpen effectively using this free Photoshop sharpening action:
Download the ACTION here:
Some 5 Minute Photoshop tips on using this action?
Using this action is super easy, but here are some tips that you may find helpful:
- Start small. Keep the radius down to a minimum you can always do another sharpening pass
- Image size matters. You will have to use more aggressive sharpening settings on larger images to get the same sharpening effect as you would on a smaller image
- 50% / 100% – when sharpening make sure that you’re at either 50% or 100% view on your screen otherwise you may be seeing screen and graphics card sharpening and now your serious Photoshopping with this awesome free action
- Masking – mask the hell out of your sharpening. There’s really no reason to sharpen the out of focus areas of your image – actually it’ll make your photos look worse. Don’t do it!
- Color – this one is hard. Sharpening can change the colors or the relationship between colors in your document. Just be mindful when using the Freaky Amazing Detail action if you prefer a heavy-handed look to things
That about wraps it up! Enjoy!
