WORKING WITH RAW FILES
O
nce you’ve followed the steps on the previous
pages to correct the colours of a raw file and
improve its contrast, you can move on to
sharpening. It can be a challenge to get your raw
shots looking sharp for a variety of reasons. For starters,
many digital cameras have a built-in filter that gently blurs
the image to avoid producing moiré patterns in busy textures.
This low-pass filter can also soften important details such as
facial features and create a photo that lacks impact. If you
shoot with a wide aperture such as f/2.8 then key details may
blur due to the resulting shallow depth of field, especially if
your subject is close-up. What looks nice and sharp on the
camera’s small LCD screen may turn out to look
disappointingly soft when looked at on your PC’s big screen,
or in print. Fortunately, Photoshop Elements has a range ofsharpening tools that are designed to tease out fine details in
a soft-looking shot. These sharpening techniques work by
increasing the contrast around the edges of details in the
image, which gives them more impact. However, when you
sharpen an image using Photoshop Elements you risk
exaggerating picture noise and skin pores in smooth areas
such as skin. You may also introduce unwanted artefacts such
as blown-out highlights, clipped shadows and ugly haloes to
the sharpened areas.
In this tutorial we’ll examine ways to sharpen a raw file
while keeping all these unwanted artefacts at bay. We’ll
demonstrate how the Camera Raw editor’s sophisticated
Detail panel enables you to restrict the sharpening to key
areas, while protecting other sections from being sharpened
(and therefore minimising artefacts).How to sharpen a raw file
Enhance texture and detail by sharpening a raw
file while keeping unwanted artefacts to a minimum
BEFORE
AFTER
GET THE START FILES HERE: http://bit.ly/type-files