Image sharpening in the digital world is a fact of life. There isn't one single image be it from a digital camera, flatbed scanner, film scanner, PhotoCD, drum scanner or any other device that digitizes the real world or objects from the real world that doesn't need at least a small amount of sharpening. Why? Because the whole process of converting a 3D object in to a digital file/image softens the copy. And, yes it is a copy even images from a digital camera, they are copies of the physical 3D world.
So, if every image needs at least some small amount of sharpening how do you do it? What it the best way? Unsharp mask, smart sharpen, sharpen, edge sharpen what is the best method. Another question you have to ask is when do you sharpen? Do you sharpen at capture time, do you sharpen during image correction, do you sharpen before or during output? All of these questions are answered in clear easy to read English in Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Finally, we have book that covers every possible means of image sharpening from the simple Unsharp Mask filter all the way to lab sharpening, high pass sharpening and more. It includes the how's and why's. It includes lots of full color sample images and screen shots. And, of course what book on sharpening would be complete without talking about the effects of noise and grain on your method of sharpening. After all if you have lots of noise and grain the last thing you want to do is make it more noticeable and sharpening can and does do exactly that.
Chapters:
Chapter 1: What is Sharpening?
Chapter 2: Why Do We Sharpen?
Chapter 3: Sharpening Strategies
Chapter 4: Sharpening Tools and Techniques
Chapter 5: Putting the Tools to Work
Chapter 6: Case Studies
Don't let the small number of chapters fool you this book is loaded with important, useful and practical information. Besides covering the manual methods of sharpening it also covers many of the most popular plug-ins available for sharpening. If you need to sharpen your images and you do, this is the book that will help you do it right. The only thing worse than an over sharpened image is one that isn't sharpened at all.
