Unsharpen vs Sharpening in Elements

[csa mt]

I'm confused as to which of these should be used to sharpen an image! I've read that one can sharpen an image, using the "unsharpen" feature, which seems very confusing!

Which is recommended, what is the actual purpose of the "unsharpen"?

[Polar01]

Carol I am like you I have a hard time getting my head around this very item. I have never used the method preferring to use a highpass filter to sharpen selected parts of the image. If I am going to print on uncoated stock than a setting of 3-4, if on a coated stock 1-2. This is only for selective sharpening I still do final output sharpening, I usually use the Nik (Google) Sharpener Pro 3 output sharpening filter for final sharpening for output for printing.

Cheers: Allan

[tclune]

Unsharp masking is a way of accentuating edges, which has the effect of making an image look sharper. Back in flim days, you could make an out-of-focus negative of a negative (which would invert it to being a positive), and then put the two sheets of film together to make your enlargement. You would control the amount of out-of-focus to increase or decrease the "radius" and the exposure on the positive to make the effect deeper or more subtle. The resulting image would have crisper edges.

USM is an appropriate way to sharpen an image, as is deconvolution, adding edges from a sharpening filter into the original image, or local contrast enhancement. I'm sure there are many other possibilities, but all of these are commonly used. Just choose the one or ones that float your boat. FWIW

[NorthernFocus]

Carol, I assume you are refering to Unsharp Mask (aka USM)? Under the same drop down menu in Elements you can either choose sharpen or unsharp mask. Is that what you mean? If so, first I agree that there was never a worse name chosen for a tool.

The fundamental difference in the two is that arguably USM gives you more control. If you notice is has an extra slider in the control panel. I typically use the simple sharpen tool most of the time and use USM when sharpening images with a lot of noise in shadows, sky, etc. You can avoid enhancing the noise in the sharpening process by tweaking the "threshold" slider. That's basically sets a filter so USM won't sharpen things below a certain contrast based on how set the slider.

You should check out the tutorials on sharpening here on CIC or look up some others on the web. There is tons of info out there. Heres a link to one that explains the name.
http://www.earthboundlight.com/photo...harp-mask.html
After reading it all and getting thoroughly confused you can then go into Elements and just play around with the sliders to see how they affect the image

[csa mt]

@Allen, thanks for your reply!

@Tom, your explanation clears up the confusion for me; thank you!

@Dan, I appreciate your reply as well! Yes, sorry; I was referring to the USM. Your explanation also really helps me understand this more; I'll visit that link you provided, as well!