by Kneson Software

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This month we're going to demonstrate how to sharpen photos using that strange sounding technique “unsharp mask” we wrote about last month. This newsletter will tell you how to use unsharp mask without having to know everything about it. Imagener is capable of automatically sharpening photos using the controls inside the program.

Imagener was created primarily for photo enlargement, but as any Imagener owner knows, enlarging photos is rarely a constant need for most photography enthusiasts. Sharpening however is useful for every single photo. That's why we feel this topic deserves a lot of focus.

A Google search on the Internet for “automatic photo sharpening” brings up our article “Unsharp Mask” as the first listing. This article is a must read in the sense that it attempts to describe the technical unsharp mask process in the simplest possible terms. However, you do not have to fully understand all the technicalities to quickly sharpen all of your photos.

In the Professional and Unlimited versions, Imagener adds sharpening functionality that automatically and visually sharpens any photo. There's two general ways to work with the Sharpening function, manually and automatically. Notice the two screen shots below. The bottom one shows a much more vibrant and clear sharpening result achieved by using surprisingly high unsharp mask values. We stumbled across this result by selecting the 'Auto' check box before moving the sliders inside Imagener for the three unsharp mask values.

Alternatively, keep the 'Auto' check box cleared and use either the Apply or Preview buttons to see results of your settings. You can always return to the original view of the image by either setting all unsharp mask values to 0 or clicking the Reset button.

Because you are really just playing with the results of moving the sliders, there's really only that step involved to achieve great sharpened results. The Preview button behaves the same as the Apply button, only it does not actually apply the sharpening to the image. It shows you the exact same result of the Apply button, but if you switch images you'll notice Imagener doesn't ask you if you want to save the result when you use the Preview button.

Get in the habit of at least viewing your best images in Imagener after applying some unsharp mask settings. Since all images can be improved with some amount of unsharp mask sharpening, your images should look better, crisper and clearer than you've seen them before.