Every digital image needs sharpening. But sharpening increases the noise in the image. In this episode I show a way to sharpen only the areas that need to be sharpened – the edges between different colours or levels of brightness. All the other parts of the image are left alone and so the noise stays down.
Sharpening should always be the very last thing you do with your image.
Chris Marquard explained sharpening in Photoshop Corner No. 4 in his Tips from the Top Floor podcast.
I got the described method from the Gimp tutorial page.
Wikipedia describes the underlying process in this article about the unsharp mask. The links at the bottom of the page are very informative.
Meet the GIMP! is now listed in iTunes and Podcast Alley. If you like the show please let the people there know. 
You can leave your comments on this blog, write me a or go to the Tips from the Top Floor Forum.
The TOC
00:22 Welcome
01:00 The original image
01:25 Why we want to selectively sharpen
02:38 Copy the layer and add a layer mask
04:00 Edge-Detect on the layer mask
06:40 Blur the layer mask
07:12 Increase contrast using curves
08:34 Sharpen the image
10:25 Fine tuning
14:35 How sharpening works
15:49 tips from the top floor
18:26 The End
TOC made by paynekj
