How Keep Your Photos Sharp

Digital image sharpening is a deep subject but for real estate photography there are some key things to be aware of.

Your camera does some sharpening in the camera before you even get your hands on the image. Most cameras allow you to set how much sharpening is done in the camera. Understand what you camera is doing for you in the area of sharpening. Those of you shooting in RAW mode have the option to adjust the sharpening when you convert from RAW to JPEG or TIFF.

The typical time you will need to sharpen your image is when you downsize it. After you downsize an image from the size it comes out of your camera to the size you will upload to the MLS or other website you should consider sharpening. The best way to sharpen is to use the Unsharp Mask in the filter menu of Photoshop Elements or of you use Photoshop CS2 the Smart Sharpen filter. There are three numbers to set when using the Unsharp Mask: Amount, Radius, and Threshold. Just consider these magic numbers. If you are sharpening for the web use Amount=200 to 300, Radius =0.3 and Threshold = 0.
To get the amount right slide the amount slide to the max and back off until it looks right.

For sharpening an image that’s going to be printed, like a flyer or brochure, use Amount=225, Radius=0.5 and threshold = 0.