Digital BW, The Print

Hi Clayton,

First you sharpen as desired using unsharp mask. I often give the
Amount 500% - the Radius between .2 - .7 (usually .2 for "normal"
image)  and the Threshold at 0. Sometimes I use .3 if .2 isn't enough
and reduce the Amount down to say the 200-300 range judging visually
at 100% on the area that is the sharpest in the file.

Then immediately after sharpening (you can not do another step in
between) go to Edit>Fade>Unsharp Mask, set to about 50%. If you are
working with an rgb file you can do it in the luminosity channel to
effect tonality only, if you are working in greyscale you of course do
not have this option of using a luminoisity channel. In the case of
greyscale you just fade at the same 50% rate overall.

This is the approach that I've been using for a long time. When you
sharpen a pixel this increases the contrast along the edge of the
pixel, the fading softens the transitions of this contrast. I have
found it most useful when things are not as sharp as I would like.
This gives one the ability to do more than one sharpening on the same
file while having some control over the highlight clipping that all
sharpening produces. I find it is useful when doing really large
upsampling (which I hate to do, but you know digital cameras) that
softens resolution so much.

I am still learning to work with the smart sharpening tools in PS CS2.
They are interesting. There are lots of different stragegies to
sharpen. I find this one useful.

John



--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Clayton Jones"
<cj@c...> wrote:
>
> John,
> 
> >I always fade the sharpening 50% in the luminosity
> >channel and that helps, especially in the highlights.
> 
> Can you explain how you do this?
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Clayton
> 
> 
> Info on black and white digital printing at    
> http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
>