Photoshop Tip: Sharpening with Photoshop’s High-Pass Filter

header-oliver-sharpening

Greetings. Have you ever been working on a project and needed to give an image a little boost? Whether it needs a bit more contrast, or needs to be sharper, I always find that the High Pass filter can give me a more dynamic result without spending too much time.

The High Pass filter should be used as an Overlay on top of a merged image. To see how it works, open a photo. I’m opening this awesome photo of me smashing sandwiches into my face, but you can open whatever photo you like. Press Ctrl/Command + J to duplicate the background (great keyboard shortcut). Now, let’s High Pass this thing.

image1

The High Pass filter is located at the bottom of the filter list under “Other.” The radius dictates what detail is omitted from the image. Play with it and figure out how much of the image you want to sharpen. I’m leaving it at the default of 10.

Now set the layer to “Overlay.” If you feel there’s just way too much sharpening for your taste, mess with the opacity. Here’s my finished image. It’s not too different from the original ( which wasn’t of the best quality to begin with), but the contrast is more dynamic, and there is some additional depth added through the sharpening.

image2

image5

Here are some additional examples:
image3

image4



Go Media is a creative agency based in Cleveland, Ohio. Besides the GoMediaZine, we also work for clients and sell stock artwork and design files on the Arsenal.

design tip, Photoshop, tips

This post was written by:

Oliver Barrett - who has written 13 posts on GoMediaZine.

I'm a designer, art director, illustrator, bowling captain, bass player, shortshop, strategist, and much much more. Follow me on Twitter and check out my Flickr

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  • great tips man...thanks for sharing...
  • zelda
    i can tell this will be a filter i'm going to be absolutely addicted to.
  • bimasakti
    cool, I also always use it, for making posters clearer image in high pass reply!
  • thanks for the tip. it works great!
  • Great tip. This is my go-to sharpening method. I do have one suggestion. Set the layer style to overlay BEFORE selecting the high-pass filter. This way you can make adjustments in the high-pass dialog box with 'preview' turned on and get a better idea of what the final product is going to look like. Peace!
  • Did I say 'Thanks for sharing.'?
  • Just tried. Works rather well!
  • Sam
    Thanks for the advice, I have had little luck with the sharpening tool in the past, but I will try your method.
  • Just tried it on 2 pictures, looks nice! http://flic.kr/p/6JBmMQ & http://flic.kr/p/6JBmfL
  • That's pretty cool, every time I use the sharpen tool it often looks a lot worse than it did originally, I will have a play around with using this method. Thanks!
  • Jeremy Brown
    Thanks for the tip Oliver! Not sure if I'll ever eat a burger again, but thanks anyway!
  • HWS
    I use this sometimes, but often I just convert to Lab-colours, select the lightness channel and use unsharp mask on that.
  • thank you so much for this uselful tool I really need something like that
  • Great Tip!
  • Iva
    The tip's great, but the photo really, really makes me sick in this heat.
  • JoeG
    I've just recently discovered the High Pass filter myself, and have fallen in love with it. I apply it to every photo I open anymore. I find that the Overlay filter works great with high resolution images, but for the lower quality ones I stick to Soft Light to avoid a major blowout in the highlights.
  • timhammond
    I can forsee that first photo giving me nightmares.
  • Ah this brings me back. I still sharpen this way, even after all these fancy schmancy sharpening tools have been added. I feel i get better control this way.
  • iami0
    i'll try this tip. thx.
  • trondus
    I've used the High-Pass as sharpening for a while now, but instead of "Overlay", I use "Vivid Light".
  • Liz Hunt
    Yes. Just yes.
  • Much better than unsharp mask imho... Thanks!
  • Great boost! This really brings out the ketchup on your shirt!!
  • I personally use the unsharp mask filter to do my sharpening. I'll try this tip!
    PS: the picture is pretty disgusting (the one with the hamburgers) :-D
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