Ever thought of using Topaz Adjust to make a High Pass sharpen base? It is a pretty neat technique that adds a little more umph to your High Pass sharpening without over doing it. I really like the Topaz Adjust 5 interface and find myself using it more and more in my workflow in some pretty unconventional ways. Check out the before and afters, if you are interested give the video a gander. Oh, and if you haven’t purchased Topaz Adjust 5 yet, what the heck are you waiting for?!?
[warning]One thing I forgot to mention i the post. If you find the new High Pass Sharpen layer is a little extreme, click on it in the layers palette and reduce it’s Opacity until it meets your liking.[/warning]
I’m looking at the Topaz Adjust 5 High Pass Sharpen Technique page and would love to” give the video a gander,” but where is the video???
It should be right there on the page, I am watching it now, however, if it is not appearing for some reason or another, here is the direct youtube link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ujk-3xl8CJE&feature=player_embedded
As much as I appreciate the results you obtain, and I use Topaz Adjust all the time, I wonder why you don’t use the “sharpen slider” in Topaz (along with Pop Photo for example) to get very similar results that save a number of steps in Photoshop?
Good question. I use this method for many reasons, one of which is that it is very versatile. I can use it on almost any image effectively, therefore I have created an Action that makes it the push of a button in my Actions panel. Another reason, it is a High Pass layer, meaning the colors are not effected, the detail is simply highlighted by a boost in the contrast of light and dark especially in detail areas. If I were to use the Pop Photo preset in Topaz it would be effecting the color information in the image. It is just another way to use Topaz for an unconventional means. I like the results it yields and while I have experimented with a lot of techniques similar to what you had suggested, I found using a Topaz Adjust for a High Pass produced effective and versatile results.
super video thanks