Often overlooked, the high pass filter in Photoshop provides some great effects that can be utilized to enhance your images. In this tutorial, we’ll have a look at how it can be used to sharpen a picture.
I’m using Photoshop CC here but the high pass filter has been around for as long as I can remember, so any current version will support it.
Start with opening your photo
Using the layers menu, add a duplicate layer
Now, using the ‘filter’ menu, select ‘others’ and ‘high pass’
The top layer of your image will now turn grey. Use the slider in the dialogue box to define the edges in the picture – you want to pick out the detail but not enough to cause fringing.
Now, go to the ‘layers’ palette and change the layer type to ‘hard light’. You’ll notice that the edges you highlighted with the high pass filter layer have now sharpened up.
Use the slider in the layers palette to set the level of sharpening to suit your taste
Flatten your image and save – Before and after
This is a very versatile filter, in parts 2 and 3 I’ll take a look at using it to enhance contrast and how to soften portraits.
Thanks for reading this, hopefully it’s of some use to you.
