FIGURE B

A light touch is all it takes to make pictures more crisp. Click picture for a larger image.

Move the Amount Slider to 100% or above until a white line or edge appears in the preview between the dark and light areas. Adjustment the Amount Slider back to just before you saw the white line or halo appear.

Keep the Radius Slider low at about 1, 2 or 3 to keep the contrast from becoming too much in the image.

The Threshold Slider is to prevent grainy textures from increasing during this process. This slider is usually adjusted by eye and kept at a low setting. In this case, 3 is the best setting to prevent the blur from going too far onto the faces in the preview window.

And there it is, increase perceived sharpness by increasing the contrast between the areas and objects in the image. To really appreciate it, click Figure C to take a look at full size image and look at the two samples side-by-side.

FIGURE C

Here's some before/after closeups. Click picture for a larger image.

Another factor to keep in mind is if you are not using your own printer for output, consult your lab service to see if they have a sharpen feature within their printing process. If so, you will not want to sharpen your image, as double sharpening would not yield good results.

Jane Conner-ziser is considered one of the best retouching experts in the field, her clients include Canon, Art Leather Manufacturing Co, Marathon Press, Kodak, many of the nations largest professional color labs, and numerous studios of fine portrait and commercial photography. She is a featured trainer for Software Cinema who is a strategic partner of Adobe Systems focused on interactive learning for the digital imaging industry. For more information visit http://www.software-cinema.com.