MetaCatholic

Here’s the third and last of my Christmas photo-editing tips. Remember my disclaimer: none of these are original. But they’re all non-destructive, which means you can go back and change your mind at any time. This particular technique works extremely well both for noisy photos, and ones where you want to sharpen different areas selectively. Again, I’m going to describe how to do it in Photoshop, but many other programs offer similar facilities.

Duplicate the background layer. The easiest way to do this is to drag it over the new layer icon (1).

Select the copy, and from the menus choose Filter > Other > High Pass. Unless you want very dramatic effects, set the radius to about 10px. Click OK. The left-hand thumbnail (2) represents what you will see, a largely gray layer muddying up the photo.

Change the blend mode (3). Overlay and Hard Light give a fairly dramatic sharpening effect. Soft Light gives a more gentle one.

Change the opacity of the layer (4). This reduces the overall effect of the sharpening.

For selective sharpening (either before or after the previous step) create a layer mask (5) and using a black brush set at around 10% opacity, start painting on it to remove the sharpening from selected areas in small increments. (The mask is represented by the right-hand thumbnail). Adding the layer mask can really help if you want to sharpen the foreground, but leave the background blurry.

So there you have it, some ways to get extra enjoyment out of your Christmas photos.