7. A sharpening equalizer

Our recently decomposed picture still smells good, and moreover offers the possibility to build a 3-sliders sharpening equalizer very quickly (to add as many sliders as you want, just increase the numbers of the decomposition levels). If you made the subtractions SS1 then LL blend 50% you can already play with opacity sliders to boost high, middle and low frequencies at the same time. Personally, I find more customizable to clip a rough S-shaped curve adjustment layer to each of the D_n layers and drag those opacity sliders:

(Fig 7.1) The S-Shape curve common to all the three adjustment layers clipped to the Dn ones: their opacity control the sharpening in the High, Middle and Low Frequency range defined by the GB radius (0.5, 2.0, 4.0 for those small thumbnails).The Layers palette in its final configuration.

It reminds me the KPT Equalizer plugin (well, surely it lacks its peculiar looking UI): you can go negative, so not sharpening but smoothing a frequency range, via lowering the opacity under 50% if you used SS1 or lowering the opacity of the D_n layers in SS2. Let’s make a version:

(Fig 7.2) One of the several possibilities obtained playing with frequency sharpening sliders.

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"Shadow/Highlights" clarification please George Machen 2009-01-07 01:58:49 > 8. Bilateral and WLS Pyramids > > ...Shadow/Highlights with SB (instead of GB) in its > “engine” gives the same halo-free look by the way... I don't have CS4. Are you saying that its Shadow/Highlights dialog now features an option to choose whether it uses Gaussian or Surface Blur? If not, what did you mean exactly in this statement? Thanks! (G-R-E-A-T write-up, Davide!) Reply

Davide 2009-01-07 22:53:37 Hi George, I'm glad you liked it! No, unfortunately there's no GB/SB option in CS4. But you can always custom build your Shadows/Highlights: for instance, create a curve adjustment layer to lighten the picture, then add a luminosity mask to it (or choose the channel that better suits the image needs and use it as a mask). Now you can experiment using GB and SB for blurring the mask: the first one gives you a standard Photoshop S/H feeling, while SB (as long as the algorithm doesn't reverse) shows less or no halos. Ciao, Davide Reply

Alexey Rybakov 2009-01-07 19:58:18 Thanks for nice article with informative illustrations and examples. I'll glad to read more if you'll develop this farther. Reply

Re: "Shadow/Highlights" clarification please Stephen Marsh 2009-01-08 12:48:48 Thank you Davide, this is a great exploration, I am eagerly awaiting some actions! George, I presume that Davide is referring to manually simulating what the Shadows/Highlights command does. Dan Margulis described a method for this and one of the Applied Color Theory list members created an action. This action is available to list members from the files section. Margulis PSU ON2004.atn http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/colo rtheory/files/ How to re-create the Shadow/Highlight effect of Photoshop CS as described by Dan Margulis in the Oct/Nov issue of Photoshop User titled "Making Two Ends Meet", pg. 44-47. Regards, Stephen Marsh http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/ Reply

Bravissimo !!! Andrea Baldini 2009-01-08 23:02:13 Devo dire che é una roba incredibile ! Davvero superba la genialità del progetto, non avevo mai visto nulla di simile! Complimenti anche per le illustrazioni realizzate molto bene. Spero che l' articolo venga tradotto anche in italiano. Complimenti ancora, Saluti Andrea Baldini Reply

good work Jack 2009-02-10 23:13:44 I'd love to test the actions when you create those. Also it would be nice to see samples on photographs as apposed to the painting your using here. It's difficult to see the sharpening. Reply

thank you! Timo Kirves 2009-03-14 17:51:02 Dear Davide, The whole series of your techniques open dramatically better chances to succesful fine art photographic prints with todays inkjet printers. I work as a photographer and instructor in Helsinki, Finland, working on both own and colleagues´photographic prints. Thank you for shearing this work of yours with the rest of community. Best Timo Kirves Reply

Davide 2009-03-14 22:48:29 Dear Timo, thank you very much for your comment, knowing that some of my thoughts may help someone out there getting better results and enjoying his pictures is a great reward for me. I wish I had more time to explore other interesting topics - I've something about local contrast in mind but I'd like to dig a bit deeper before publishing. Kind regards, Davide Reply

Thanks Davide Miriam Calzada 2010-05-18 00:39:32 Hola, mi nombre es Miriam soy fotografo. Vivo y trabajo en Republica Dominicana. He disfrutado mucho toda esta informacion que ofreces. Trabajo por años con Hasselblad y pongo mucho interes en cualquier forma de perfeccionar mi trabajo. Especialmente viniendo de un profesional como tu. Atentamente. Miriam miriamcalzada.com Reply

Thank you Miriam! Davide Barranca 2010-06-01 09:23:46 It's a great gift to read feedbacks like yours! I've seen the images in your website, and I'm sure the actual prints must be really gorgeous. Thanks again ad all the best, Davide Reply

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