WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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By now, you probably know how to adjust simple
properties in your images, like shadows, highlights,

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and color.

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But what if you had something with a less
obvious issue; for example, a photo that looked

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"soft," or maybe even a little grainy?

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Fortunately, Photoshop comes with a number
of filters that can help you with something

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like this.

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Today, I'm going to show you two of them:
sharpening, and also a feature called noise

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reduction.

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Sharpening does exactly what you would think.

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It can make your images sharper or clearer,
so certain details are easier to see.

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It can't fix photos that are blurry or out
of focus, unfortunately—but if you have

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an image that's a bit soft like this one,
it can help.

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Any time you're working with filters, it's
a good idea to duplicate your layer first,

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so you aren't making changes to the original.

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Just right-click... choose Duplicate Layer
from the menu... and then give it a name.

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We'll type Sharpened to make it easy to tell
the layers apart.

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When you're done, go up to Filter on the menu
bar... then mouse over the option that says

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Sharpen.

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Here you'll find a few different filters to
choose from.

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They'll all sharpen your image, but in different
ways and to different degrees.

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We're going to use the one called Unsharp
Mask, which may sound a bit weird, but it's

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exactly what we need.

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It's very easy to use, and it'll let us customize
the results.

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As you can see, this filter gives you three
different settings to work with: Amount, Radius,

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and Threshold.

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You'll see a preview in the document window
as long as this box stays checked.

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You also have a smaller preview that you can
easily reposition.

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Notice that when you hold this with your mouse,
it toggles the preview on & off, which makes

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it easy to compare the sharpened version to
the original.

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Now, any time you use sharpening, it's important
not to make any extreme adjustments—you

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can end up doing more harm than good.

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That's being said, it's still OK to experiment,
and nothing in Photoshop is permanent.

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Why don't we get started with the Radius setting?

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Radius controls the size of the details that
are being sharpened, so generally, it's best

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to set it to a lower value.

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Too high, and the edges will start to look
unnatural or exaggerated—this is called

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a halo effect.

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We recommend something between .3 and .5 for
most images; you can even enter the exact

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value here.

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You could go a bit higher if you were working
with a higher resolution photo.

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The Amount setting controls the level of sharpness
being added.

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How much you need depends on several different
things, including the image size, so it's

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good to play around with this.

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This time, if you go too low, the effect on
the image may not be strong enough—see how

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it still looks kind of soft?

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In this case, I think I'm going to set the
amount fairly high, somewhere between 180

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and 190.

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Finally, sharpening has a tendency to make
image noise more visible.

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Those are the tiny little flecks that can
make your photo look grainy (you might even

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see some in the background here).

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Increasing the Threshold can help you reduce
this, but you have to be careful—it can

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cause your sharpening to become inconsistent.

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Therefore, we recommend leaving this set to
0, unless the filter is creating lots of extra

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noise for you.

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So there we have it—I think we're done!

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The difference is subtle, but it does make
the image look a bit more crisp.

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Once again, you can click & hold the preview
to toggle it on or off.

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When you're satisfied, go ahead and click
OK.

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Noise isn't just caused by sharpening—it
can also appear in your image for other reasons;

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for example, if the photo was taken in lower
light.

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Luckily, you can reduce this using a noise
reduction filter.

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Once again, you'll start by duplicating your
layer, so you aren't making changes to the

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original.

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You can right-click like before, or just drag
the layer down to the New Layer button.

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Next, go ahead to the Filter menu... then
mouse over the Noise option.

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You'll want to choose the one that says Reduce
Noise... and a dialog box will appear.

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When you apply noise reduction, you're actually
removing information from the image, so you

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have to be careful when using this feature.

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Removing too much noise can lead to blurriness
or a loss of detail.

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The key is to take it one setting at a time,
and just keep adjusting them until you're

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happy with the results.

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So let's go ahead and get started.

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First we have Strength, which basically controls
how much noise reduction is being applied.

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We recommend starting at the maximum value
so you can see your adjustments more easily—but

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you can always set it to something lower later
if you need to.

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Next we have Preserve Details, which controls
how much of the original image is left untouched.

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You might want to play with this one a bit
while you keep an eye on the preview.

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Choose a setting that's too high, and you'll
actually cancel the effects of the filter...

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but if you go too low, you'll start to lose
detail.

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We're going to shoot for something less extreme,
maybe around 5 or 10%.

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This keeps some of the detail, but also gets
rid of a lot of the noise.

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Sometimes, noise will look like small patches
of individual colors—the word for this is

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color noise.

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You can mitigate the effect by increasing
the Reduce Color Noise setting.

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Just be careful not to increase it too much,
or, depending on the image, the colors might

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start to bleed together.

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For most images, we recommend a lower setting;
I think 40% or 50% should do it for this one.

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Finally, reducing noise can also cause the
image to lose some sharpness.

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You can add the sharpness back using the Sharpen
Details setting.

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Just like Preserve Details, increasing this
too much can cancel the effects of the filter,

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so you generally want to aim lower.

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In this example, we're going to set it to
about 10%, which should sharpen it just enough

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to make a difference.

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Keep in mind, you can use the same click & hold
method to compare the filtered version to

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the original.

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If you look closely, you'll see that the difference
is pretty slight, but we did manage to reduce

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some of the noise.

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As you can see, there are lots of minor problems
that you may not have realized you can fix

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in Photoshop.

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Now you know how to sharpen your images and
reduce image noise, using two easy-to-use

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filters.