What Can I do to make this Photo Appear Crispier and Sharper ?

[augustya]

Hi Guys,

I have this photo which I have edited initially using Affinity Photo but later I have also added it to another APP Like Photo-AI from Topaz Labs and made some changes, but still I feel  it appears a little fuzzy to me. What else can I do to make it appear Crisper and sharper?

I know to add sharpening to an image certain live filters in Affinity Photo like the unsharp mask or the high pass filter are the most commonly used adjustment to add sharpness to an image, when I tried applying either of this I'm still not getting the end, result that I am looking for so basically I'm looking out for an end result that the image is crisp and sharp just like (The sample photo the which is a woman I am trying to achieve that resolution and Finish) The image that I have I feel it looks more fuzzy, a tiny little bit of bluriness to the image what is the best way I can make it more crispy and sharper?

 

[mopperle]

If the original is already of poor quality, IMHO not much you can do, even if Topaz Photo AI doesnt improve it. You can bring all various filters in AFP to its limits, but then I assume you will get some strange artefacts.

You might give Luminar Neo a try. In many of my cases it gave better results then Photo AI.

If you want to upload the original image, I could check how it looks with Lumiar Neo.

[augustya]

6 minutes ago, mopperle said:

If the original is already of poor quality, IMHO not much you can do, even if Topaz Photo AI doesnt improve it. You can bring all various filters in AFP to its limits, but then I assume you will get some strange artefacts.

You might give Luminar Neo a try. In many of my cases it gave better results then Photo AI.

If you want to upload the original image, I could check how it looks with Lumiar Neo.

Yeah but still I would like to know and explore if Affinity Photo has to offer anything that can make it look more crispier and sharoer ?

[augustya]

@carl123 Calling Old Knights if any suggestions that could work ??

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, augustya said:

Yeah but still I would like to know and explore if Affinity Photo has to offer anything that can make it look more crispier and sharoer ?

Apart from the sharpen tools (clarity, unsharp mask, highpass) you could increase the contrast and thus achieve a subtle brighter specular light and the impression of more 'crispness'.

Actually the two images differ in various aspects that may make a comparison tricky and avoid a sharper face for the man's portrait:

• both portraits seem to have similar sharpness -> compare hair & detail below the faces
• the man's portrait even seems to have a little more depth of field -> compare shoulders
• the woman's portrait is larger = more pixels for the face.

• the woman's portrait shows more light = brighter specular / shiny highlight.
• the man's portrait has less / no texture in the skin = less / no details available for sharpening.

[carl123]

The Unsharp Mask live filter does a good job at sharpening the image

But the man's forehead and cheeks have virtually no skin texture on them so there is nothing to sharpen in those areas.

All I can think of is to add some noise (masked to those areas) to try to recreate the skin texture then the sharpening will have some effect on those areas

 

[smadell]

@augustya - A while back you initiated a discussion about Frequency Separation, and this man’s photo appears to have been “smoothed” using that technique. As @thomaso has noted, there is virtually no texture in the man’s facial skin, and this is an all too common result of poorly implemented Frequency Separation - either choosing the wrong initial radius for the separation or going too far in editing the Low Frequency layer.

It’s likely that the initial separation used too high a radius, placing too much of the detail in the low frequency layer that was then smoothed out. That’s a destructive change, and can only be fixed by a re-do of the Freq Sep filter, using a lower radius. In fact, that’s the most likely culprit, since there is really no detail to speak of.

It’s also possible that your treatment of the low frequency layer was just too heavy handed. If you did that treatment on a separate layer (as @Ldina suggested at the time) you could just edit or replace that layer.

[smadell]

Here’s another shot in the dark. If, indeed, you did a frequency separation then there might still be some detail on the high frequency layer. Try just duplicating that layer (so you have a single low frequency layer, but 2 high frequency layers). This might accentuate whatever detail is left on that layer by doubling it up, and might increase the perceived “crispness.”

[augustya]

43 minutes ago, carl123 said:

The Unsharp Mask live filter does a good job at sharpening the image

But the man's forehead and cheeks have virtually no skin texture on them so there is nothing to sharpen in those areas.

All I can think of is to add some noise (masked to those areas) to try to recreate the skin texture then the sharpening will have some effect on those areas

 

Yes I deliberately smoothened out the cheeks skin area because he had a lot of Acne Scars on the Cheeks. I am not necessarily saying I want texture in the skin. All I am saying is I wanna reduce the fuzzy effect a little bit. And what is the best way to do it ?

[smadell]

Take a look at two versions of your "woman" photo. The one on the left is the original, as downloaded from your first post. The one on the right had a (too) heavy-handed frequency separation applied. I purposely set the radius too high, and then "evened out" the tones in the low frequency layer way, way too much. There was no other editing done. The result is flat looking, lacks crispness and texture, and I doubt it can be salvaged (at least not well) except by re-doing the frequency separation. I can't help thinking that this is reminiscent of what's happened to your "man" photo.

[thomaso]

Alternatively to restarting the previous blur/high frequency process, you could try adding some specular/glossy highlights (which,by the way, are still present on the chin) to reduce the flat impression and give the face a bit more plasticity, with a slightly textured brush for instance.

[augustya]

23 hours ago, smadell said:

23 hours ago, smadell said:

@augustya - A while back you initiated a discussion about Frequency Separation, and this man’s photo appears to have been “smoothed” using that technique. As @thomaso has noted, there is virtually no texture in the man’s facial skin, and this is an all too common result of poorly implemented Frequency Separation - either choosing the wrong initial radius for the separation or going too far in editing the Low Frequency layer.

It’s likely that the initial separation used too high a radius, placing too much of the detail in the low frequency layer that was then smoothed out. That’s a destructive change, and can only be fixed by a re-do of the Freq Sep filter, using a lower radius. In fact, that’s the most likely culprit, since there is really no detail to speak of.

It’s also possible that your treatment of the low frequency layer was just too heavy handed. If you did that treatment on a separate layer (as @Ldina suggested at the time) you could just edit or replace that layer.

Now it is already a processed image without using Frequency Seperation. How do I add texture to the image.now?  I tried using Texture Brush on the face choosing colour. Looks like it didn't work that way.

[thomaso]

25 minutes ago, augustya said:

How do I add texture to the image.now?  I tried using Texture Brush on the face choosing colour. Looks like it didn't work that way.

Instead of painting additional texture with colour it maybe easier and less tricky to use blend modes + opacity only to add texture while preserving the existing colour. Actually, a skin texture resembles plasticity (tiny subtle 3-dimensionality) and would/should be created naturally by highlights / shadows only but avoid adding any colour. –> see the example right above your post.

You can either create new layers for the texture (non-destructively!) or paint on the existing layers. In case of the latter it maybe an option to use the Dodge / Burn Brushes instead of a colouring Paint Brush.

[augustya]

On 11/25/2024 at 8:07 PM, carl123 said:

The Unsharp Mask live filter does a good job at sharpening the image

But the man's forehead and cheeks have virtually no skin texture on them so there is nothing to sharpen in those areas.

All I can think of is to add some noise (masked to those areas) to try to recreate the skin texture then the sharpening will have some effect on those areas

 

So is there any Filter to create Noise in an image?

[carl123]

Layer > New Live Filter Layer > Noise > Add noise

[smadell]

If you want to add skin texture to your photo, why not just use an overlay? I did a quick web search of "facial skin texture" and got hundreds of images (most of them free). I downloaded this one, since it was seamless and could be made into a Pattern layer. That, and a mask, and you've got really good skin texture.

1) Open the skin texture file, making sure it is a Pixel layer. I then used a Vibrance adjustment to lower the Saturation to 0, merging the adjustment layer into the texture layer. Choose "Selection from Layer" from the Select menu. Then, choose "New Pattern Layer from Selection" to create the Pattern Layer. This can be as big or as small as you'd like.

2) Put this Skin Texture Pattern Layer on top of your photo, and put an Empty Mask onto it. Set the Blend Mode of the Skin Texture Pattern Layer to Overlay or Soft Light (I used the latter.) Paint the mask with white to let it show through only the areas that you want skin texture applied. (Avoid the eyes, lips, hair, eyebrows, etc.)

3) In my example (below) I used Dodge and Burn layers to lighten and darken areas of the face to give extra depth.

[augustya]

1 hour ago, smadell said:

If you want to add skin texture to your photo, why not just use an overlay? I did a quick web search of "facial skin texture" and got hundreds of images (most of them free). I downloaded this one, since it was seamless and could be made into a Pattern layer. That, and a mask, and you've got really good skin texture.

1) Open the skin texture file, making sure it is a Pixel layer. I then used a Vibrance adjustment to lower the Saturation to 0, merging the adjustment layer into the texture layer. Choose "Selection from Layer" from the Select menu. Then, choose "New Pattern Layer from Selection" to create the Pattern Layer. This can be as big or as small as you'd like.

2) Put this Skin Texture Pattern Layer on top of your photo, and put an Empty Mask onto it. Set the Blend Mode of the Skin Texture Pattern Layer to Overlay or Soft Light (I used the latter.) Paint the mask with white to let it show through only the areas that you want skin texture applied. (Avoid the eyes, lips, hair, eyebrows, etc.)

3) In my example (below) I used Dodge and Burn layers to lighten and darken areas of the face to give extra depth.

Hey Thanks for the suggestions.

But I don't know most of you guys pointed out that the processed photo does not have any texture to the skin, but the original photo of the subject is just way too bad in the sense uneven skin tone, scars on cheeks and forehead, sun damaged skin on forehead, bad lighting conditions, like dark on one side etc...so I really wanted yo take care about all of those problems.

So in the process if I used a lot of smoothening how is that a bad thing ? The end user wants to see a decent looking, good photo doesnt matter if it has texture or not. Yes but it should not look plastic and So I don't think the processed photo I posted yesterday looked plastic ? Did it ?

[Dazmondo77]

I'd prob tackle this with blend ranges:

 

[augustya]

19 hours ago, smadell said:

If you want to add skin texture to your photo, why not just use an overlay? I did a quick web search of "facial skin texture" and got hundreds of images (most of them free). I downloaded this one, since it was seamless and could be made into a Pattern layer. That, and a mask, and you've got really good skin texture.

1) Open the skin texture file, making sure it is a Pixel layer. I then used a Vibrance adjustment to lower the Saturation to 0, merging the adjustment layer into the texture layer. Choose "Selection from Layer" from the Select menu. Then, choose "New Pattern Layer from Selection" to create the Pattern Layer. This can be as big or as small as you'd like.

2) Put this Skin Texture Pattern Layer on top of your photo, and put an Empty Mask onto it. Set the Blend Mode of the Skin Texture Pattern Layer to Overlay or Soft Light (I used the latter.) Paint the mask with white to let it show through only the areas that you want skin texture applied. (Avoid the eyes, lips, hair, eyebrows, etc.)

3) In my example (below) I used Dodge and Burn layers to lighten and darken areas of the face to give extra depth.

is this how you meant it to be done?

But is this not creating a sort of white hue on the painted area?

[smadell]

The skin texture, as provided, is far too large for your photo. You must scale it down (Use Place to put it into the Layers stack, then resize it before you Rasterize it). This will make the skin detail more proportional to the image in the photo. Also, the whole idea of a "seamless" texture is to use it to create a Pattern Layer. As to the "white hue" created in the result, you can mitigate this with adjustment(s) afterward; I used a Curves layer with blend mode Luminosity (so as to leave saturation alone). [Edited after intial posting: the last step was to resize the pattern, larger and smaller. This has the effect of increasing and/or decreasing the size of the details in the pattern - in this case, the "pores" and creases of the skin. It did not translate well in creating the video for the web, but it is quite evident on the monitor.]