Selective Sharpening Using Quickmask in Photoshop

There are times when we have an image that we feel would benefit from a bit of aggressive sharpening. The butterfly in the image shown above is one such image. Our concern, however, is that sharpening the entire image can result in the introduction of noise in the background. We also don’t want to degrade the softness of that background as it helps to separate the butterfly from the rest of the image. As with most processes in Photoshop, there are numerous ways to achieve an end result. I’m going to describe a basic method to selectively sharpen using a quickmask. I will assume a basic knowledge of photoshop (tool selection , etc) in this demo.

After opening the image I wish to work with in Photoshop, the first step I always take is to create a new layer to work on. This preserves the original image in tact so that we can always return to it if we need to restart. Two ways to accomplish this are to go to the tool bar at the top of the screen and click on “Layer”. In the drop down, move to duplicate layer and click on that. A quicker method is to go to the layers palate and left click on the background layer and drag down to the icon shown highlighted in the image shown below, and release. Once you have done one of these two actions, you should see a background layer and a background copy layer in your layers pallet.

We can now begin our quickmask selection.

Before beginning, make certain that you left click on the background copy layer in your palate to make this the active layer that we will work on. Once you have done that, go to your tool bar and select the ” brush tool”. I generally use a soft edge brush, but a hard edge will work also. You just need to be more precise in painting with the hard edge. The drop down to select a hard or soft brush is in the upper left of the screen. Click on brush and then click on a picture with either a hard or soft edge. Once you have accomplished that you can adjust the size, as you work, by using the right and left bracket keys on your keyboard. (this is for PC users)

Once you have your brush selected, press the “Q” key on your keyboard (this is for PC users) to activate the quickmask process. move your brush over the area that you want to select and sharpen. Left click and hold as you paint in the outline of the area you want to sharpen. You will see your painting in red. You don’t have to be perfect on the edges your first time trying this, and you can refine the selection later. Once you have your area to sharpen painted, you will see something similar to the photo at the left. Notice that I have also included the antenna and legs.

After completing your painted edges, you can then go back and fill in the open center area of your selection by simply painting in all exposed areas. Remember that you can adjust your brush size with the bracket keys. This is a big help as you define the outline as well. The finished painted mask is shown in the photo at the right. As you gain more experience, this selection process will become much easier and much cleaner for you.

Now that we have our butterfly masked out, we can once again press the “Q” key to exit quickmask.

Now that we have pressed the “Q” key we are presented with an image that looks like the above. We see the familiar Photoshop marching ants, which would lead us to believe that our selection has been made. Look carefully at the selection and you will notice that it really has selected everything but the butterfly. To correct this, go once again to the toolbar at the top of the screen and click on select. The drop down will show several choices, but we will click on “inverse”. Once you have done that you will see your image with the marching ants change to show that only the selected mask (the butterfly in this case) has been selected. The image below shows the new selection.

At this point, you can select filters, sharpen, unsharp mask on this layer and only the butterfly would be affected. I would like to take this one step farther to allow for more flexibility in your adjustments. Press and hold the ctrl and J keys together and Photoshop will create a separate layer containing only the butterfly selection. Your layer palate will now look like what is shown below.

You can click on the eyeballs of the background and background copy layers to turn them off. you will then only see the butterfly layer. You can use the eraser to fine tune the selection by erasing any areas that show too much background. Turn the background and background copy layers back on. Click on the butterfly layer and go to the toolbar and select filters, then sharpen, then unsharp mask. Sharpen the butterfly to your taste.

An added bonus from creating the separate butterfly layer is that it will allow us to go back to the background copy layer and adjust that without affecting the butterfly. You may have a bird on a branch with leaves behind or around it that are just a bit too sharp and distract from the bird itself. To show how we handle this with our butterfly shot, I click on the background copy layer and then go to filters, blur, Gaussian blur and slide the slider to a level that softens the background to taste.

The files below show our original butterfly shot and the finished shot with selective sharpening and a touch of Gaussian blur to soften the background a bit more. I hope you have enjoyed this tricks and tips, and that you’ll give it a try with one of your images. Please stop by again.