I’ve really been interested in sharpening in Photoshop Elements lately.  I hope you aren’t getting bored with reading about sharpening techniques.  Of course, these posts are in no way a comment on my always ummm, stellar and tack-sharp photography!

Anyway,  today’s Digital Photography School post, How to Sharpen Photos: An Introduction, was written incredibly clearly.  Something inside my mind clicked, finally, when reading Helen Bradley’s Sharpening Threshold explanation.

When using the Unsharp mask, I usually play with the Amount, Radius and Threshold sliders until I think my picture looks good.  But it helps to know what those sliders actually change when you move them.

This article  explains that running the Unsharp Mask sharpens what Photoshop considers to be the edges of your pictures.  The threshold setting defines those edges.  The lower this value is, the more edges Photoshop finds in the picture.  A setting of 0 means that everything is an edge and everything is sharpened.  This probably is not good, especially on pictures of people.

Read the article if you have an extra minute.  It’s concise, easy to read and very informative.  And have a great weekend!

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Erin