Lonestardigital's LBHR2 Adobe Photoshop Midtone Sharpening Actions are designed to produce sharp, halo-free, high quality pictures from straight-out-of-the-camera images with minimum input & effort on the part of the photographer. Just one click on your computer's keyboard plus one input prompt is all that is needed to run the Actions from start to finish.

The LBHR2 Actions produces a finished image with smooth, natural looking, filmlike sharpness. Print quality is especially outstanding, it doesn't have that fake "digital look".

The LBHR2 Actions use Lab Color's L Channel and Advanced Layer Blending to limit the sharpening process to midtone details. Midtone details are accentuated; shadow & highlight details are retained; sharpening halos, noise, artifacts, and color shifts are virtually eliminated.

By limiting sharpening to the midtones, shadows & highlights are not clipped during the sharpening process.

What happens when shadows & highlights are clipped by sharpening?

Sharpening works by increasing contrast along the edges in an image. The edges are defined by the transition areas between light and dark pixels. The lighter pixels get lighter and darker pixels get darker, defining the transitions more clearly.

Clipping occurs when the increased contrast in the transition areas pushes the darker pixels to pure black and the lighter pixels to pure white. Smooth, gradual, natural looking transitions along edges & details become abrupt, creating dark or light sharpening halos and noticeable pixel stepping (jaggies).

FULL Lonestardigital's Layer Blended Halo Reduction Sharpening Action.

Requirement: 

Digital cameras supported: All makes, all models.
Software required: Adobe Photoshop 5, 6, 7, CS, CS2, or CS3.
Image formats supported: Jpeg, Tiff, or Raw converted files; 8 or 16 bit.

Free

Like all Lonestardigital Actions & tutorials, the new LBHR2 Actions are free for my readers. Download links and instructions are located at the bottom of this page.

• Adobe Launches Photoshop Express Public Beta -26/03/2008
• Photoshop to boost Kashmir CM image -12/12/2007
• Adobe Camera Raw 4.3 update (Windows and Mac) -16/11/2007
• Adobe Bridge CS3 2.1.1 update (Windows and Mac) -16/11/2007
• Adobe Photoshop 10.0.1 update for Adobe Photoshop CS3 (Windows and Mac) -16/11/2007

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 Tips -22/05/2007
• Adobe Lightroom - My Top 10 Shortcuts -19/05/2007
• Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS -09/05/2007
• Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Photoshop CS3 on Windows Vista -09/05/2007
• Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP -09/05/2007

• Displaying RAW files' Thumbnails in Adobe Bridge -08/12/2006

Recommend this article...

---