Digital BW, The Print

on 11/1/01 11:13 AM, Carolyn  Frayn wrote:

> I do a similiar thing to a duplicate layer in
> order to sharpen selected areas of the underlying image layer by masking the
> sharpened layer where required and then playing with the opacity.


Carolyn,

Getting back to our conversation a couple of weeks ago...

Remember I was speaking well of some of Deadman's "smart" sharpeners, and
you were speaking wisely of using layer masks. I've come to implement the
two in conjunction with each other in a way I'm quite happy with.

What I do is start with John's SuperSharpener action, and use it to make an
edge mask, but just after the 2nd levels adjustment on the mask I inserted a
stop in the action. At this point I've the beginnings of a nice mask loaded
as an alpha channel, and the action has stopped running. I can then paint on
the mask, or manipulate it anyway I see fit, and resume the action at that
point to apply the sharpening through a perfected mask, OR, what I prefer is
to not resume the action. I make my dupe layer, run USM on the entirety of
the layer, and load that mask as my layer mask.

It's the best of both worlds in that the mask making is somewhat automated
(or at least actioned), and the mask itself is infinitely more manipulable
and controllable.

JB, if you are reading this, I highly recommend this is how you implement
the action in the future. Too many times I ran it and then found out that an
area was not affected that I wished was, or vice versa, and had to start
from scratch. With this approach you just paint/blur/change opacity/etc.,
your layer mask until you are happy. And all the while you can see it's
effect on sharpening as you work. Add in that you can just alter the layer's
opacity to tailor the effect for different sizes/outputs, and.....
fuggedabouddit - it's the best.

Todd