This tutorial will show you how to use a simple selective sharpening technique to fix photos that are slightly out of focus. I’m using Adobe Photoshop CS3, but there is nothing in this particular process that you can’t do in most major photo editing packages. I think I started using this technique back in photoshop 4 or 5, all you need to have access to are: layers, a decent sharpening filter, and the ability to paint masks onto layers.

Let’s look at an example photo provided by a poster on Canon Digital Photography Forums P1

The first thing to do is to make a copy of the original photo layer. This new layer will be the one we sharpen. Use whichever sharpening filter you prefer, in photoshop I tend to use “unsharpen mask”. What you need to pay attention to here are the detail points, don’t worry about adding grain to flat areas. Look at things like the eyes, the mouth, hair lines, edges of hands… the points where the focus is most important. P2

You should now have a nice sharp photo, but you will likely have lots of extra noise/grain in your photo. P3

Next create a mask on the sharp layer that makes it 100% transparent, showing the original behind it. Use a drawing tool with soft edges such as an airbrush or paintbrush and draw on the mask, revealing the sharp layer along the points of interest. Essentially you are tracing edges. Your mask should look something like this. P4

Here’s my screen for reference. P5

This should give you a nice combined image that has the smooth surfaces of the original layer with the sharp edges of the sharpened layer. P6

So what's next? Well there are ways to automate this proccess for batch jobs, using filters to create the mask instead of doing it by hand, then creating an action to apply the proccess to multiple images.

And personaly I might play with the levels a bit to make the photo pop a bit more, such as in P7. But that's a matter of personal preference, and outside of this tutorial.

If you have any questions or comments on this tutorial feel free to email me.

P2 Detail Points

P3 Grainy Sharpened photo

P4 Mask

P5 Work Screenshot

P7 Levels and contrast tweek