Sharpening Your Photos: Understanding the Why's and the How's

By Roy Barker

You are definitely certain that you've used all the proper settings before taking stills but they still didn't come out right. As such, you seem to have a requirement to do some image sharpening all of the time. What could actually be the reason behind this?

One of the commonest reasons that may make a contribution to the loss of image quality is exaggerated image compression that results from using the JPEG format. On the other hand, shooting in the RAW format would not give you this much of a problem because images saved using this format won't bear any image degradation.

If you do not know the most significant difference between the standard of pictures produced by the JPEG format as compared to RAW format before studying this article, and all of your pictures require some sharpening, these are some cool sharpening tools that will help you do the trick:

- Unsharp Mask. With the Unsharp Mask, you can control the amount or intensity of sharpening you wish to apply to your images, the radius or the width of sharpening along the sides, and the threshold or the magnitude of tonal difference between two adjacent pixels.
- Smart Sharpen. If you are using Adobe Photoshop Elements, you can see this particular tool by opening the Enhance Menu. It has also got its own built in sharpening algorithm that may immediately adjust the settings for you. That's so cool, isn't it?
- Some more advanced sharpening tools. If you need to have greater control, then you may want to try some more advanced sharpening tools as those found in Photoshop Lightroom. Otherwise, you need to use a dedicated sharpening tool instead.

Remember that more isn't invariably better when it comes to image sharpening. Just keep your settings to provide the best image quality and you'll certainly improve quality photos every time!

About the Author:

Roy Barker provides some additional tips and info here on sharpening an image. You can also register here to get a free photography report and tips on starting a photography business from home.