How to Create the Sharpest Portraits in Photoshop!

today Rigoletto really advanced and fantastic way to sharpen your assistant Boresha by adding different levels and characteristics of sharpness to different areas so without any further ado let's get started [Music] this video is divided into sections so if you are go ahead and skip to any section that you want use these timestamps let me ask you a question as far as digital photography is concerned what is a sharp image a sharp image is an image where the area of focus is completely sharp and has no blurry edges and I underlined that has no blurry edges for example I'm holding this book right and this is an image this book is completely sharp now edges just doesn't necessarily mean that I'm reaching the end of this book and this is the edge no edge can also be the edge of the texture the edge of the design whatever there is in this book this can be an edge this can be the edge of the design so the edges has to be sharp again what is a sharp image as far as digital photography is concerned a sharp image is an image where the area of focus has no blurry edges as far as the real world is concerned cameras are not perfect but suppose for a moment that you had the most perfect camera and you focused it all right so what would be the most ideal image question to you now think about it like this a digital image is comprised of what what is the smallest unit of a digital image pixels right digital images are comprised of small boxes called pixels each pixel has its own color information so if there was an ideal image with an area completely in focus if we zoom in as we reach the edge of the area the pixel on the edge would have the color of the object and the pixel just outside the edge would have the color of the background but that is not the case in the real world let me illustrate so here we are in Photoshop and let's go ahead and draw a circle just like that and fill that with black now let's have a look let's zoom in let's have a close look at the edge if this was an ideal sharp image the last pixel over here well the black color and just the next pixel outside the edge will have the white color but to maintain the softness and the smoothness it's not the case you see what shades of grey so we can say this is quite blurry but it's on purpose that Photoshop did it to make it look smooth now how do you think Photoshop sharpens it let me show you something interesting so let's go ahead and create a curves adjustment layer and increase the contrast okay so if we try to do that now have a look make the brights brighter make the dark darker now as you can see the edges are clearly defined the last pixel is black the next pixel is white what did we do here we made the Grays which are closer to black completely black we made the Grays which are closer to white completely white therefore we increased the contrast right that's what we did we increased the contrast what is contrast making the brights brighter the darks darker let me illustrate one more example let's go ahead and delete this curves adjustment layer and let's add a blur to this if we go to filter blur and then Gaussian blur let's add say a three pixel blur to it and hit OK now then it defines what a blurry image is where the edges are not sharp and the last pixel of the object over here and the first pixel of the background has a lot of gradient between them now how do we normally sharpen it go to filter sharpen and let's choose anything let's choose unsharp mask now amount is the amount of sharpening how much of a sharpening are we applying or in other words we just learned the concept the amount controls the contrast on the edge the higher the amount the more the contrast the more brighter the Grays will be which are closer to white and the more darker the grace will be which are closer to blacks right that is the amount now here's an important thing here over here and that is the radius radius determines how thick the edge is right now we applied a Gaussian blur what was the radius of the gaussian blur' 3 pixels right so we applied three pixels wide blur to it so when you're sharpening you have to keep in mind how thick the edge is in this case have a look edge is this thick let me illustrate from here to here right this thick so we have to apply we know in this case we know it's three pixels because we applied a three pixel blur so you'll just dial in three right over there and amount controls the contrast now what is it doing it's simply making the darks darker and the brights brighter and that's how photoshop increases the sharpness now let me ask you one more question if in the real world you captured a blurry image will this be able to sharpen it no right if it was possible you can buy just any cheap camera and just get started that's not possible why is it not possible see once you blur the image you also blur the texture now Photoshop cannot invent details the sharpness that Photoshop adds by adding contrast around the edges is artificial and we have to keep that in mind I hope the concept is clear with you now let's go ahead and jump straight into the technique so here I have an example for you if you want go ahead and download this check the links in the description let's zoom in quite a bit let me tell you something I already we touched the teeth so let's have a look at the before and after so this is the before this is the after it was bad really bad now if you are go ahead check this tutorial out on retouching teeth or links are already in the description let's analyze the image for a bit we are in total love with the freckles it's trending right now so there is this freckles now the freckles have a thicker edge okay freckles have a thicker edge then we have the eyes now when it comes to eyes they don't have so much of a sharp edge but the edge is thinner than the freckles then we have other features like nose and smile lines those are very fine so for different thickness of edges we have to apply different levels of sharpness that do in different areas if you try to apply thick sharpness or sharpness of thick edge on a different place like the nose it will give a halo effect which you don't want so first of all only need to do create a merged layer to do that ctrl alt shift e command option shift e holds that and that creates a merged version of everything that you see on the canvas right now now let's desaturate it how do we desaturate it press ctrl shift u command shift u if you are using a Mac and also you can go to image adjustments and then desaturate see the shortcut over there now simply make two three four five copies of this one depending upon the number of levels of sharpness you want to add you're gonna go ahead and add three copies okay now let's turn off these two and let's come to this one go to filter other high pass this is important now as we move on to high pass let's decrease the value all the way to 0.1 and let's increase it gradually stop at just the moments when you see the fine details not the freckles but the edges on the nose and skin texture so on and so forth so as we can see if we move forward too much we see the freckles we don't want that for freckles we'll create a separate sharpening layer so for this one let's go ahead and decrease it and let's keep something around 1.4 that is fine and hit okay let's understand what this did if we zoom in have a look at the edge it increased the contrast around the edge it made this side of the edge a little darker that side a little brighter that's what it did and this is fake sharpness okay let's zoom out it gives you an illusion that this is sharp now as you can see the rest of the areas apart from the edge is gray now overlay is a blend mode which hides everything which is 50% gray let's change the blend mode to overlay now have a look before after I'm not sure where they can see it in this screen let's zoom in and let me show you the before and after so this is the before this is the after sharpness added around the edge now this is something which you don't want in every place because the background is completely out of focus and you don't want to accentuate the noise which also forms a part of the sharpness so let's go ahead and create a mosque to create a negative mask hold the alt or option and click on the mask button now this creates a mask filled with black what is the concept of mask black conceals white reveals black other areas which do not show up white other areas for sure so we want this layer to show up only on the face right so let's take the brush make sure the foreground color is white press X to toggle between the foreground and the background and then just simply go ahead and paint on the face let's zoom in so that you can see the sharpness effect because I'm sure you cannot see that on YouTube or Facebook wherever you're watching this now let's paint all over the face just like that let's zoom out you don't have to be super accurate in this because this is a fine sharpness let's make it a little bigger let's apply it a little bit to the hair as well make sure it's not giving you the halo effect now what is the halo effect you'll get it you'll understand it once we go more in-depth now let's go to the second one okay this is level 2 this was level 1 this is level 2 let's turn that on again go to filter other High Pass now this time it was 1 point for the last time this time you want to accentuate the eyes a little bit the mouth the lips or let's go ahead and increase it let's see what shows up first we don't want the freckles to show up now not so much let's go for 3 point 3 and that seems fine to me hit OK the freckles are just beginning to show it's ok all right let's change the blend mode again from normal to overlay now let's have a look it's looking pretty good right the eyes are looking sharp everything is looking good however let's have a look at the nose if we zoom in and if I turn off this layer I have a look this is OK but if I turn this on its it adds a halo effect around the edge and we don't want that and that's why we have to apply that selectively ok just on the eyes or the eyebrows or wherever you want hold the alt or option and click on the mask button this creates the negative mask again take the brush foreground color white let's make the brush Mahlon how do we do that on Windows hold alt and the right mouse button drag it to the left to make it smaller or right to make it bigger on a Mac that would be option and control and the right mouse button and then drag let's make it a little smaller and let's sharpen up the eyes you can also go ahead and decrease the float somewhere around say 30% and slowly and gradually paint just like that make sure you don't want to sharpen the wrinkles right so let's erase it from here how do we erase it change the foreground color to black because black hides we don't want it on the wrinkle we just want it on the eyes like that not on this eye so much but we'll add a little bit a little bit on the eyebrows if you want to add the sharpness all at once increase the flow 200% flow is just like an intensity how much of an intensity do you want to paint let's sharpen up a little bit these areas not the edge on the nose we don't want or any other edge of it we'll give it a halo effect let's try it on the lips and the teeth pretty good yeah that looks great if you wanted to accentuate the skin texture just like that and that looks good of course we need to make the teeth a little whiter you can do that watch the tutorial links in the description little bit of hair just one clicks like that okay I'm not sure whether you can see it on the screen right now but let's have a look at the overall before and after so this is the before complete before and this is the after I didn't want to shoot and show you the teeth thing so let's make a group of both of these unlock the background layer make a group okay before after it's sharpened now let's add the last level of sharpening or you can add as many levels as you want it's totally up on you now let's turn on this one filter other high pass this time let's increase the value even more you want to show the freckles let's keep it somewhere around 7 or 6.5 let's keep it 6.5 7 would be too much now as we increase it to 6.5 again look around the nose the halo effect we don't want to apply it around that area hit okay and then change the blend mode to overlay hold the alt or option and click on that one take the brush and just paint on the free earth what do you call it freckles okay do not paint on out-of-focus areas but you can paint just a little bit completely out of focus areas do not paint because that will make the noise much more visible maybe a little bit on the ice not the wrinkles that erase let's erase it from the wrinkles with black let's bring back white and changes simply paint let's zoom out a little bit and let's have a look at the freckles the freckles look much more accentuated better before after before after now if you want to make a copy of it if you want to double the intensity just make a copy by pressing ctrl or command J okay that accentuates the freckles even more it makes it even more sharper this increase the flow and let's paint whoops that's too much that's why is it happening because we didn't select the mask before painting on the lay select the mask and paint it white okay I think we should add one more level of sharpness just on the freckles right around over there so we have used all these layers and that's why I asked you to make a lot of copies right in the beginning just when you see the copies ending make two or three copies again so let we can make a copy no problem we can create another ctrl alt shift E now here's a tip when the layer that you have selected is turned off as in this case and you want to create a new merged layer using the shortcut it just won't happen if you try ctrl alt shift E it just won't create that so for that you have to create a new layer blank layer then press ctrl alt shift E okay then that happens then again go through the process ctrl shift you command shift you desaturate it filter other high pass let's apply somewhere around 10 now that's nice it okay and let's change the blend mode to overlay let's turn all of this back on and hold the alt or option and click on this take the brush and slowly with the flow 50% that's fine and paint on the freckles and we are pretty much done don't paint on the edges if we do see you try to do you see the halo effect this is bright this is dark we don't want that to happen just paint on at the freckles so there we go we have done that now at the end now this is a very essential tip let's have a look at it before and after so this is the before this is the after it totally brings out the face if i zoom out the background is completely out of focus the face is sharp it really makes the portrait pop so before after now at this point most of the times we go overboard when it comes to sharpening so here's the most important tip make a group of all of this hold the shift key make sure the first one is selected select the last one on the row of sharpening layers everything in between will be selected hold ctrl and press G ok ctrl or command G macit would be command windows control group let's name it sharpening double click on the text and type sharpening and this is just for organization purposes and decrease the overall opacity let's choose somewhere around 67 70 is a perfect number to be at for this image and there you have sharpened the image using different levels of sharpening so just a quick little recap in digital photography what is a sharp image a sharp image is an image where the area of focus is completely sharp and the edges are not blurry which means the last pixel of an object around the edge has to have the color of the object and the first pixel that touches the object or in other words the first pixel of the background has to be of the color of the background it doesn't have to be a gradient so that is a sharp image now how does Photoshop sharpens images Photoshop sharpens images by adding contrast around the edges it makes the dark pixels darker and the bright pixels brighter around the edge and how do we apply levels of sharpness first of all make a merged there it's very important and it's also important that you apply sharpness at the end of all the retouching that you do now once you make a merged layer desaturate it by pressing ctrl shift you command shift you if using a Mac and then make copies of it three copies of it four copies of it as much as you like then turn off all the other ones and select the first one apply filter other High Pass now when you go to high pass decrease the value all the way to 0.1 and gradually increase it and according to the details you see on different layers have different values change the blend mode to overlay and just mask in those areas where that type of sharpness is required thank you so much for staying until the end and since you stayed till the end let me show you one more important tip when it comes to sharpening so let's turn this off and instead of doing that we can also do this create a merged it layer desaturate it ctrl shift you and then turn this into a smart object by going to filter convert for Smart Filters it's okay then make two or three copies as you would do with the normal method now what is the advantage of this let's turn this off select the first one if you go ahead to filters other High Pass and you apply say 1.5 or whatever there is change the blend mode to overlay now if you want since this is a smart object you can change the value of high-pass anytime so you can double-click on high-pass and change the values to your liking and you can seen real-time what's happening you can also go ahead and change the blend mode to overlay first and then apply high-pass but I usually apply high-pass first because inside of high-pass you can actually see which areas are being accentuated now you have two choices you can work with the regular less as we did or apply smart objects as we did just now the call is completely yours my personal favorite is applying the regular less because I don't want to get confused by changing it to him and again and that's all for this video I hope this video helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bell so that you my friend don't is the thing I would like to take this moment to thank all these nice people who are supporting us on patreon and making this episode possible and helping keep fixing perfect free for everybody forever thank you so much for watching I'll see you guys in my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you click create [Music] you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 177,159

Keywords: sharpening, advanced sharpening photoshop, high pass, sharpen image, portrait retouching, photography, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: a83KaS5eeW8

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2018