Sharpening your image can be in two ways: over-sharpening or not quite matching what you’re looking for. What if you had full control over the sharpening process in a simple, straightforward plugin? Interesting sound?
Coming from Italian photographers Gaspare Silverii and Luca Libralato and their set of Tonality Masks is Sharpen v1.1, a simple yet powerful plugin that has very effective control over all the details of contrast and frequency during your sharpening.
display
The plugin’s interface is quite basic and uncomplicated in approach, which means that even new users can see exactly the results they are aiming for. The interface opens as a default non-expanding window showing the available options: Volume, Structure, and Details. Each of these performs an individual aspect of editing based on your image, or can be expanded into a larger window via the Sharpen button.
Once expanded, all options are available as a whole editing interface where you can choose the intensity of your edit based on the results you are looking for. I find this approach to the finer points of volume, structure, and detail very effective, giving you precise control over the editing you’re trying to achieve. Using the plugin this way created a new edited layer, keeping your original.
micro-adjustment
Each panel has a View Mask feature, which allows you to see the areas affected by the slider. Of course, how much you increase the slider at will will have a greater impact on these areas. Subtlety is key.
Each panel also has Shadow Protection and Lamp Protection sliders so you can avoid over-editing these areas, resulting in a detrimental effect on your image.
presets
Once you’ve made your adjustments, they can be saved as presets for future edits that, once applied, can be adjusted to suit the image you’re adjusting. fix. For this example, I saved the preset as a small detail, due to the nature of the editing.
When I loaded another image into Photoshop, I applied the same fine detail edit, only this time, instead of expanding the entire sharpening window, I just selected the Details option knowing that although it is applied globally, but only small details will be used for this ignoring the structural and volume tweaks of the preset. I find this a very useful feature because you can, depending on the image, choose what you want to sharpen or enhance.
Editing through just one of the options, Volume, Structure, or Details doesn’t create a new layer and only applies the edits to it, so if you want more flexibility I recommend creating a new layer via copy.
Example pictures
Here are some sample edits using the Fine Detail preset that I created and applied subtly, as I didn’t want to over-sharpen any of the images.
Conclusion
This Photoshop plugin is a simple approach to enhancing and sharpening your images without being complicated; It does what it says on the tin. It’s also part of a broader set from Tonality Masks, which looks really cool and includes various panels like Landscape, Color Grading, Glow and Orton, Black and White, and Tonality Masks. If Sharpen V1.1 whatever happens, it can be a useful set of plugins for your editing.
What I like
- Easy to use
- unregulated workflow
What can be improved
I love the ability to hold Alt to see the mask instead of clicking the view mask button on every slider.
