Can't figure out sharpening of just one part of image

[Bill S]

I have seen this written about in several of the forum items. I just cannot figure out what I am doing wrong.

I have an image, with several faces in the center, all of them are in focus. The two faces on the edge of the image are not in focus. So I want to sharpen just those two faces.

The Selective Sharpening Video Tutorial is way too complicated for me, with high pass and so on. I just want to sharpen a corner of the image. I click on Sharpen Brush Tool. Capacity, Flow, and Hardness are up as high as they can go. I paint the area that I want to be sharpened, and nothing happens.

[AlainP]

If something is not in focus there is nothing you can do. Sharpening a face not in focus will probably make it worst. 

[toltec]

1 hour ago, Bill Smyth said:

=I paint the area that I want to be sharpened, and nothing happens.

It may or not work perfectly but something should happen.

If you post an example, someone can probably help. If the image is private, black out the in focus people.

[carl123]

The Sharpen Brush Tool can appear to be doing nothing at times

Apart from the obvious settings also check you are using a solid round brush, zoom in a lot, then use multiple short stokes of the brush, releasing the mouse button each time, ( which appears to amplify the effect) rather than continuously scrubbing over the image with the mouse button held down, which has a far less effect on the image.

If that works for you you can then adjust the settings how you want them, if not we may need screenshots or a video  of what you are doing

Also make sure you are working on a raster layer and not an image layer (your Assistant settings may not be set to automatically rasterise an image layer)

[Smee Again]

It's just me, but I would probably make a duplicate layer of the original image. Then I would sharpen that image using live filters (first "clarity", then "high pass") and fiddle with the adjustments until I got the best results I could.

Next step, create a mask for the top layer. Make sure the mask is selected and press <CTRL>+I to invert the mask. This will make the duplicate layer invisible. Then I would  grab a soft brush and, painting on the mask with white, I would paint on the faces that I wanted to sharpen. Remember to use a soft brush and reduce the flow to around 30 (or less). Paint only the areas you want to reveal ("White reveals, black conceals"). If you reveal too much, swap over to black and paint on the mask in the areas that you don't want seen.

[firstdefence]

Set the Sharpen Tools Mode to Clarity or Unsharp in the context menu just above the workspace

Zoom in on the faces resize the brush head to fit the width of the face and drop the hardness down to around 50% and sharpen. less really is more with this tool.

The Sharpen Tool isn't... a focus tool.

[Bill S]

Thanks so much, albeit four years later. I do not understand a lot of what is being said here, but I did find another way to sharpen just a portion of my image.

I use the Freehand Selection Tool to draw the dashed lines around the portion of the image that I wish to sharpen. I then apply the Unsharp Mask Filter. It only sharpens the pixels inside the dashed lines.

Since you say "The Sharpen Tool isn't... a focus tool," can you explain the difference between sharpening and adding focus?

[NotMyFault]

Sharpening is increasing contrast: dark gets darker, bright gets brighter, but the level is depending on the brightness difference of neighboring pixels. This increases the perceived sharpness.

There is no „add focus“ function, it is practically impossible to change focus (in software) of a single image. Modern Cameras allow to take a series of images with focus shift, and choose the best one(s) later, or even combine in focus merge.

There are very expensive „light field“ cameras which work differently and allow setting focus in editing later - But these are special apps from the camera vendor