Question about sharpening in PS

Gnome · Jan 12, 2007

Hi!

I've taken some pictures, but on some I want to try and sharpen some parts of the image. And I wonder what's the best method is for this.

ATM I have acquired NIK Sharpener Pro 2.0, but it does not seem to do any difference at all. Is it me who has exaggerated expectations to the result or am I doing this all wrong?

The image I am trying to process is this. I'm trying to get at least the sign (the blue with the arrow, and then black/yellow thing beneath) a bit sharper. Is this possible?

Big Mike · Jan 12, 2007

Sharpening doesn't really do much for shots that are actually out of focus. Sharpening just enhances the contrast between different colors & tones...that's how I understand it anyway.

astrostu · Jan 12, 2007

I don't believe so, at least not by any simple "Sharpen" method that I know of in PS. The issue is that the sign isn't really unsharp, it's that it's blurred across a significant portion of the image and so any sharpening technique is going to sharpen that blurring effect (make it more significant) instead of isolating a single instance of the sign. You could try painting it or using the clone stamp in PS to isolate the one image of the sign better, but that's the only thing I can think of.

Peacemaker636 · Jan 12, 2007

I consider myself to know a thing or two about Photoshop, and I can tell you that that's not what it means by sharpening. It doesn't work like that.

Sharpening just increases the contrast along edges, and makes an in-focus, non-motion-blurred shot look crisper, it can't fix large motion blurs or shots that were out of focus.

Sorry.