Counterintuitive as it may seem, you usually don’t want to en-
hance all edges, just the major ones. Two reasons for this: First,
slight edges—such as those produced by film grain, noise, and
skin blemishes—are often bad edges. Do you really want to
sharpen someone’s pores? Second, More Accurate more than
doubles the amount of time it takes the filter to preview and
apply an effect. When editing a high-resolution, noiseless prod-
uct shot—in which you want to see every last detail—More
Accurate can work wonders. But for portraits and day-to-day
work, I generally recommend you leave it turned off.- Save and apply your settings. Because the Smart Sharpen op-
tions are so complex—even more so than we’ve seen thus far—
it’s a good idea to save your settings for later use:- Click the tiny disk icon ( ), name the settings “Soft Squir-
rels” (see Figure 7-7), and click OK. Now your settings are
ready and waiting for later use. - To avoid overwriting the Default settings, choose Soft Squir-
rels from the Settings pop-up menu. Then click OK at the
top of the dialog box to apply those settings to the image.
- Click the tiny disk icon ( ), name the settings “Soft Squir-
Figure 7-7.
Look closely at the side of the love-squirrel on the right and notice
the bright bluish-purple striations woven into the fur. The filter can’t
distinguish color detail from luminosity detail, so it exaggerates the
contrast of the hue, saturation, and brightness of an image in equal
amounts. To return the colors to their previous appearance—free of
purple—while retaining the sharpness, drop out the colors as explained
in the next step.226 Lesson 7: Sharpening and Smart Objects