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Sharpening with Filters

Lesson 85 from: Adobe Photoshop CC Bootcamp

Blake Rudis

Sharpening with Filters

Lesson 85 from: Adobe Photoshop CC Bootcamp

Blake Rudis

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Lesson Info

85. Sharpening with Filters

Next Lesson: Rendering Trees

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Bootcamp Introduction

16:22
2

The Bridge Interface

13:33
3

Setting up Bridge

06:55
4

Overview of Bridge

11:29
5

Practical Application of Bridge

27:56
6

Introduction to Raw Editing

11:00
7

Setting up ACR Preferences & Interface

07:39
8

Global Tools Part 1

16:44
9

Global Tools Part 2

20:01
10

Local Tools

22:56
11

Introduction to the Photoshop Interface

07:13
12

Toolbars, Menus and Windows

25:07
13

Setup and Interface

11:48
14

Adobe Libraries

05:57
15

Saving Files

07:39
16

Introduction to Cropping

12:10
17

Cropping for Composition in ACR

04:44
18

Cropping for Composition in Photoshop

12:40
19

Cropping for the Subject in Post

03:25
20

Cropping for Print

07:34
21

Perspective Cropping in Photoshop

07:11
22

Introduction to Layers

08:42
23

Vector & Raster Layers Basics

05:05
24

Adjustment Layers in Photoshop

27:35
25

Organizing and Managing Layers

15:35
26

Introduction to Layer Tools and Blend Modes

21:34
27

Screen and Multiply and Overlay

09:15
28

Soft Light Blend Mode

07:34
29

Color and Luminosity Blend Modes

12:47
30

Color Burn and Color Dodge Blend Modes

07:43
31

Introduction to Layer Styles

11:43
32

Practical Application: Layer Tools

13:06
33

Introduction to Masks and Brushes

04:43
34

Brush Basics

09:22
35

Custom Brushes

04:01
36

Brush Mask: Vignettes

06:58
37

Brush Mask: Curves Dodge & Burn

06:53
38

Brush Mask: Hue & Saturation

07:52
39

Mask Groups

05:52
40

Clipping Masks

04:11
41

Masking in Adobe Camera Raw

07:06
42

Practical Applications: Masks

14:03
43

Introduction to Selections

05:42
44

Basic Selection Tools

17:41
45

The Pen Tool

11:56
46

Masks from Selections

04:22
47

Selecting Subjects and Masking

07:11
48

Color Range Mask

17:35
49

Luminosity Masks Basics

12:00
50

Introduction to Cleanup Tools

07:02
51

Adobe Camera Raw

10:16
52

Healing and Spot Healing Brush

14:56
53

The Clone Stamp Tool

10:20
54

The Patch Tool

06:38
55

Content Aware Move Tool

04:56
56

Content Aware Fill

06:46
57

Custom Cleanup Selections

15:42
58

Introduction to Shapes and Text

13:46
59

Text Basics

15:57
60

Shape Basics

07:00
61

Adding Text to Pictures

09:46
62

Custom Water Marks

14:05
63

Introduction to Smart Objects

04:37
64

Smart Object Basics

09:13
65

Smart Objects and Filters

09:05
66

Smart Objects and Image Transformation

10:57
67

Smart Objects and Album Layouts

11:40
68

Smart Objects and Composites

10:47
69

Introduction to Image Transforming

04:34
70

ACR and Lens Correction

09:45
71

Photoshop and Lens Correction

14:26
72

The Warp Tool

11:16
73

Perspective Transformations

20:33
74

Introduction to Actions in Photoshop

09:27
75

Introduction to the Actions Panel Interface

05:06
76

Making Your First Action

03:49
77

Modifying Actions After You Record Them

11:38
78

Adding Stops to Actions

04:01
79

Conditional Actions

07:36
80

Actions that Communicate

25:26
81

Introduction to Filters

04:38
82

ACR as a Filter

09:20
83

Helpful Artistic Filters

17:08
84

Helpful Practical Filters

07:08
85

Sharpening with Filters

07:32
86

Rendering Trees

08:20
87

The Oil Paint and Add Noise Filters

15:08
88

Introduction to Editing Video

06:20
89

Timeline for Video

08:15
90

Cropping Video

03:34
91

Adjustment Layers and Video

05:25
92

Building Lookup Tables

07:00
93

Layers, Masking Video & Working with Type

15:11
94

ACR to Edit Video

06:10
95

Animated Gifs

11:39
96

Introduction to Creative Effects

06:08
97

Black, White, and Monochrome

18:05
98

Matte and Cinematic Effects

08:23
99

Gradient Maps and Solid Color Grades

12:20
100

Gradients

04:21
101

Glow and Haze

10:23
102

Introduction to Natural Retouching

05:33
103

Brightening Teeth

10:25
104

Clean Up with the Clone Stamp Tool

08:07
105

Cleaning and Brightening Eyes

16:58
106

Advanced Clean Up Techniques

24:47
107

Introduction to Portrait Workflow & Bridge Organization

14:47
108

ACR for Portraits Pre-Edits

21:27
109

Portrait Workflow Techniques

18:46
110

Introduction to Landscape Workflow & Bridge Organization

12:17
111

Landscape Workflow Techniques

37:36
112

Introduction to Compositing & Bridge

06:59
113

Composite Workflow Techniques

34:01
114

Landscape Composite Projects

24:14
115

Bonus: Rothko and Workspace

05:15
116

Bonus: Adding Textures to Photos

07:05
117

Bonus: The Mask (Extras)

05:18
118

Bonus: The Color Range Mask in ACR

04:54

Lesson Info

Sharpening with Filters

On the flip side of that, which also works hand-in-hand with that, is going to be our sharpening. So when I sharpen this, I've reduced the noise. Now I'm gonna go ahead and sharpen it. If I make a layer, a stamp above this, it's gonna take all of my noise reduction settings, smash them together with my background, and allow me to do sharpening on top of my noise reduction, and my background. Because this has Blend If in it, I'm gonna need to make a stamp above it. I don't wanna sharpen this layer. I don't wanna make a copy of the background, and put it up here and sharpen it, because then what am I doing? I'm sharpening noise that existed in this background layer. So if I Press Control or Command + Shift, Alt or Option + E, Control + Shift + E, or Command + Option + Shift + E on a Mac, your fingers turn into like a little pitchfork claw-looking thing. We're gonna call this Sharpen. I used to do a lot of different ways of sharpening. I used to do something called a High-pass Sharp, in w...

hich I still do high-pass sharpening quite often. But really now, under Filter, under Sharpen, there is a Smart Sharpen. And the new Smart Sharpen is awesome. Unsharp Mask was one of the things I used to, sounds counter-intuitive, Unsharp Mask. How would you unsharpen something? But, Unsharp Mask was something that we used to use a lot in the past. Smart Sharpen, it's relatively new, I'm not sure when Photoshop snuck it in there, but it's a really powerful tool for sharpening our images. So if we just drop down the amount, drop down the noise reduction. You see it has a noise reduction built inside this as well. Typically how this works is that the amount is how intense it's gonna be, and the radius is how many pixels around it you want to grab to increase that intensity. So if we bring your amount all the way up, look at the preview here. And we bring our radius all the way up. It's gonna be really bad. It's taking those edges. Sharpening is an illusion, really is what sharpening is. Sharpening is taking areas that are detailed in your photograph, and it's adding contrast to those details to boost them up. It's, of anything you're not actually sharpening anything. It's not like you take a knife and you sharpen that knife. What you're doing here is, you're just increasing the contrast between the lights and the darks on the details to give the illusion of sharpening, okay? It appears more sharp to us because of that. So if we drop this radius down, that's a pretty decent sharpen actually, on some of those areas. Still a little too much, we'll bring that radius down, and then bring that amount down. Down here you have shadows and highlights, where you can actually feather the amount of sharpening that's happening between those areas of highlights and shadows, which is really cool. If we bring this radius up. We'll bring it up to a really uncomfortable amount, and we look at the fade amount on the highlights, this slider is going to fade, especially in the highlight areas, where that sharpening takes place. If that fade amount is low, it's gonna be very high contrast. Look at these little, look right in here specifically. As we bring that fade amount up, see how it starts to add some tone in there, so it's not just a bright white, punchy adjustment for our sharpening. If we were to do the same thing, but look in some of our shadows, it's gonna fade that amount of sharpening into the shadows as well. Tonal Width is how far that is going to go, the higher you put that, the more of that highlight area it's going to select to allow that fade to go in. So you're looking at the highlights and shadows essentially, of those detail areas to bring in that amount of sharpening. And that is quite a bit of an amount of sharpening if we look right back in here. Again, I wouldn't likely take my radius that high anyway. But in order to see what's happening, any time you wanna see what any sliders are gonna do within Photoshop, like these ones right here. If you get this set to the perfect setting up here, and then you come down here, you're probably not gonna see a difference at all. If you do, it's gonna be very subtle, and then you're gonna ask yourself, well why would I even use these things? If it's so subtle, why would I use it? Take these settings up to their max, then come down here and start modifying these settings to see what's happening with the interaction between this set of sliders, with this set of sliders. That's always a good practice when you're doing anything in Photoshop. If you wanna see what's happening, and how it's making affect of something, bump all the sliders up to max, and then start pulling them individually and independently down to see what's happening with that one adjustment. Especially if you wanna work your way through something like Adobe Camera Raw. That's beautiful advice. So bring the Tonal Width up a little bit on our (mumbles) our shadows, that looks pretty good there. Now, look what's happening here. We reduced the noise in our shadow areas, but now it's getting really sharp. We have a noise reduction slider in here that will help us reduce the noise in those shadow areas. It's not always quite as precise as we want it to, because it's also working globally on the entire image. So it might be counter-intuitive to do that. If we drop this down, just Press Okay, and guess what we can do now? We can do Blend If on this, and protect the shadow areas from getting sharpened. Here, what did we protect? We protect the highlight areas from getting the noise reduced. Here, we can click on this, and if we Press Alt or Option. Actually, let's Turn On our Color Overlay. Go back to our Blend Options. Now we're protecting all those shadow areas from getting any of that sharpening. If we Press Alt or Option, Split and Feather This. So we get it tapered down to here, basically anything that's Magenta is gonna get that sharpening. That's the baseline that I'm setting. If I Press Alt or Option, Feather this over, now I'm allowing that sharpen to slowly transition into other areas of the photograph, while still protecting and maintaining those shadow areas that needed that noise reduction in the very beginning of all this. So if we zoom on down here, that's gonna be sharpened. We'll just Press Okay, because we can always turn that Color Overlay off. So now if we look at this image. Here's the before, here's the after on the sharpening. Before and the after with the noise reduction underneath. The sharpening is a little heavy, and that's okay. If it's heavy, just come to Opacity, and drop the opacity a little bit. Maybe you want 50% of that sharpening. Just drop that opacity a little bit, and you're good to go. I would actually prefer it to be a little bit on the heavy side, then on the light side there, because I can always come back and feather that in with Blend If. I could always use opacity to clean up that area. If I start too low and build up, it's gonna create artifacting. If I start high and work my way down, it's not gonna artifact. Because if I were to try and sharpen this again with the same sharpening settings, it's gonna look not so good. So there is the overall before, and the overall after, which you can't see anything when you're looking at this, but if we zoom in. Overall before, overall after. It's very subtle, but it's important. And when you print this, it's gonna look beautiful.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Photoshop Bootcamp Plug-In
Textures
Clouds
Painted Backgrounds
1 – Intro to Photoshop Bootcamp
6 – Intro to Raw Editing.zip
11 – Interface and Setup
16 – Intro to Cropping and Composition.zip
22 – Intro to Layers.zip
26 – Intro to Layer Tools.zip
43 – Intro to Selections.zip
50 – Intro to Cleanup Tools.zip
58 – Intro to Shapes and Text.zip
63 – Intro to Smart Objects.zip
69 – Intro to Image Transforming.zip
74 – Intro to Actions.zip
81 – Filters.zip
88 – Intro to Editing Video.zip
96 – Custom Effects.zip
102 – Natural Retouching.zip
107 – Intro to Portrait Workflow.pdf
110 – Intro to Landscape Workflow.zip
112 – Intro to Compositing.zip
115 – Rothko and Interfaces (Bonus Video).zip
33 – Intro to Masks and Brushes.zip
106 - Frequency Separation.zip

Ratings and Reviews

Robert Andrews
 

Blake Rudis is the absolute best in teaching photoshop. His knowledge and how he presents the instruction is clear and concise - there is NO ONE BETTER. Yes, his classes require some basic skills, and maybe I'd organize the order of (or group) the classes in a different order, but, let me be clear - if anyone is to be successful or famous in the Photoshop world, it should be Blake Rudis. I strongly recommend his teaching. I started photography and post processing in 2018, and because of this class, I'm know what Im doing. The energy you get when you create something beautiful is profound, it makes you bounce out of bed (at 4AM) like a 5 year old, to go create. It's a great ride! Thanks Blake, & Thanks Creative live.

a Creativelive Student
 

Amazing course, but don't be fooled into thinking this is a beginner's course for photographers. The problem isn't Blake's explanations; they're top. The problem is the vast scope of this course and the order in which the topics are presented. Take layers for example. When I was first learning Photoshop (back when we learned from books), I found I learned little or nothing from, for example, books that covered layers before they covered how to improve/process photographs. These books taught me how to organize, move, and link layers before they showed me what a layer was actually for. Those books tended to teach me everything there is to know about layers (types of layers, how to organize them, how to move them, how to move them two at a time, how to move them two at a time even if there are other layers between the two you're interested in, useful troubleshooting tips, etc. ) all before I even know (from a photographer's point of view) what it is the things actually do. The examples of organizing, linking, and moving mean everything for graphic designers from Day One, but for photographers not so much. Blake does the same thing as those books. Topics he covers extremely early demand a lot of theoretical imagination for a photographer who doesn't already know quite a bit about what he is talking about. Learning about abstract things first and concrete things later only makes PS that much harder to understand. If you AREN'T a beginner, however, this course is amazing. I thought it would be like an Army Bootcamp, taking you from zero and building you into a fit, competent Photoshop grunt. Now I think it's more like Army Bootcamp for high school varsity jocks. It isn't going to take you from the beginning, but the amount you'll get out of it is nonetheless more than your brain can imagine. I've been using PS for years to improve my photographs, and even to create the odd artistic composite or two. The amount I've learned in the first week is amazing, and every day I learn something -- more like many things -- which I immediately implement to improve my productivity and/or widen the horizons of what I can achieve. If you ARE a photographer who's a Photoshop beginner, I'd take very seriously the advice Blake gives in the introduction: Watch one lesson, and practice the skills and principles you learn in that one lesson for two weeks. THEN watch the next lesson. You can't do that of course without buying the course, so it's up to you to decide whether you'd like to learn Photoshop and master Photoshop all from the same course. Learning it first and mastering it later will cost more money, but I think you'll understand everything better and have a much more enjoyable ride in the process. As for me? I'm going to have to find the money to buy this course. There is simply way too much content in each lesson for me to try to take on all at once, but on the other hand I don't want to miss anything at all that he has to share.

Esther Gambrell
 

WOW!!! I've been purchasing CL classes for several years now and have watched HOURS of "How-To Photoshop" classes, but this is the first one I've actually purchased because of the AWESOME BONUS content!!! SERIOUSLY??!!?!? A PLUG-IN??? But not only that, Blake is SO easy to understand, and he breaks down concepts in different ways to connect with different people's learning styles. I REALLY appreciated this approach because I am a LEFT-BRAINED creative that has an engineering background, so I really connected to what Blake was saying. THANK YOU FOR THAT! There are TONS of Photoshop courses out there, but I found this one to be the most helpful in they way Blake teaches concepts so that you know WHY you're doing what your doing. I feel like he taught me how to fish with Photoshop to feed me for a lifetime instead of just giving me a fish to feed me for one day. This is the BEST overall PS course out there!!! Thank you!!!!

Student Work

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