Frequently Asked Questions

I use the Unsharp Mask tool for sharpening my photos. What advantages does FocalBlade have?

The Unsharp Mask tool, which is available in many image applications, has some disadvantages that Focal Blade doesn't have. Unsharp Mask amplifies color noise which becomes very obvious if you compare the original and sharpened version at 200% or 300% magnification. FocalBlade by default keeps color noise constant and doesn't amplify it. With its Soften slider FocalBlade even lets you reduce noise.

A second problem of Unsharp Mask is that the Radius slider doesn't only increase the used radius, but also dramatically increases the sharpness. So changing the Radius slider also forces you to readjust the Amount slider every time which can be very annoying. In FocalBlade if you change the Radius slider, you don't have to readjust the Sharpen slider, because the Radius slider doesn't increase sharpness.

Another weak point of the Unsharp Mask tools is its Threshold slider. It can easily produce artifacts if you aren't very careful with it. These artifacts might not be very visible for the untrained eye, but if you take a closer look you can easily see them. If the image contains noise, this effect of the Threshold slider will be even more obvious. FocalBlade doesn't need a threshold slider because it sharpens the edges and the surface differently. So FocalBlade doesn't produce any artifacts like Unsharp Mask and gives you much more control of the sharpening. Additionally, the Threshold slider of Unsharp Mask doesn't apply any sharpening to some parts of the image while other parts are sharpened at full extent. FocalBlade on the other hand lets you apply different sharpening intensities to different image parts.

Another problem of many Unsharp Mask tools is that they sacrifice quality for speed. They use an algorithm that renders faster, but produces a less accurate sharpening result. FocalBlade doesn't use unprecise algorithms and calculations and therefor provides the best possible sharpening quality.

As you see, FocalBlade offers much more convenience and control of the sharpening process while avoiding the side effects of the Unsharp Mask tool.

What is the difference between FocalBlade and other sharpening tools that use special sharpening methods?

FocalBlade uses a sharpening technique that is similar to Unsharp Mask, which is best suited for sharpening photographic images. However, FocalBlade's sharpening is much more sophisticated than that of conventional Unsharp Mask tools.

Some tools force you to apply sharpening two or three times per image. That increases the risk of oversharpening and costs too much time. With FocalBlade you only need to sharpen an image one time.

Another technique is called Deconvolution and is extensively used in astronomy and microscopy. These deconvolution methods aren't very suitable for normal photos and are in fact deblurring and not sharpening methods. They reduce blur, thus increasing the visual information in images, but they don't produce optimal sharpening results.

Other techniques try to reduce the gradients around the edges in photos in order to improve the sharpness. They can be helpful for a few photos, but they can easily corrupt edge lines and reduce the photographic quality of the photo thus giving it a painting-like look. FocalBlade on the other hand sharpens photos effectively while keeping the look of the photos natural.

How does FocalBlade compare to in-camera sharpening?

Today's digital cameras only have limited processing capabilities, which is even more true for inexpensive cameras. They don't apply any sophisticated sharpening methods, because that would mean that the time between taking two photos would be even longer. No camera user would accept. In-camera sharpening is especially destructive on high-ISO shots that were taken in low light conditions, because in-camera sharpening unnecessarily amplifies the ISO noise extremely.

So it is generally recommended to switch off in-camera sharpening or at least reduce it to the available minimum. Unfortunately many very low-price digital cameras don't offer any option for influencing the in-camera sharpening. In such a case you have to live with the result or buy a more expensive camera. Switching off internal sharpening also lets you take more JPG photos with the same memory card, because file sizes of photos without sharpening are much smaller.

I have some bad quality photos with a lot of noise that I want to sharpen. Can FocalBlade help in this case?

If you have a noise reduction tool, please try it before applying FocalBlade to it. That might be a help in some cases. Also, please correct the colors, brightness and contrast of these photos before using FocalBlade. However, even if you don't do that, FocalBlade can still help, but you have to do some manual adjustments in FocalBlade to get a better result. One method is to use FocalBlade's Soften slider from the Surface tab to suppress noise or at least keep it from getting too visible when sharpening. With the Shadows slider from the Fix tab sheet you can avoid sharpening the shadows where most of the noise is located. You can also reduce the value of the Sharpen slider on the Surface tab or set the Auto Surface box to a more moderate setting to keep the noise down.

If your image is too noisy or contains too many artifacts, there is no tool that can help you. Then the only way to improve image quality is to size it down to e.g. 50% or even 25% of its original size.

I want to sharpen some of my JPG files again with FocalBlade...

There are three problems. If your JPG files were already sharpened with another tool, you may decrease the image quality when sharpening them again. If they were sharpened too strongly, you can use FocalBlade's Soften slider (while setting the Sharpen sliders to zero) to decrease the sharpening effect. If they are only weakly sharpened, you nevertheless have to use a very light sharpening setting in FocalBlade. If halos become too visible, you can use the two Halo sliders from the Fix tab in FocalBlade to suppress them.

A second problem is that a high JPG compression produces white halos in the images. These halos are usually made even more visible by the sharpening process. FocalBlade lets you suppress these white halos with the White Halo slider from the Fix tab. A third problem are the 8-pixel blocks that are produced by JPG compression. They can become quite visible when sharpening, too. FocalBlade lets you suppress them with the help of the Soften slider, but at the cost of less sharpness.

So it is generally better to use a very very low compression rate on your JPG files in the first place if you know that you may want to sharpen them later.

I would like to use the "Master Image" concept and save the master for various sizes and for various papers for printing. I would therefore like to save the sharpening on a layer rather than apply it to the image; is this possible and if so, how does one accomplish this?

You can duplicate the original image layer and only apply the sharpening to that layer. You can use a new layer for each paper type, but for different sizes you should better save different files. The disadvantage of this method is that the file size gets larger with each new layer.

Another option is to save the FocalBlade settings as a preset file that has the same file name as the image plus the paper type. For example if the image is called IMG_1001.tif, the size is 2048x1536 and the paper type is photo glossy paper you can save the preset files for as IMG_1001_2048_photoglossy.fbp. However, it would be better to create standard FocalBlade presets for different sizes and papers, so you don't need to create a new preset files for every new image. The advantage of this method is that you don't need to save big files. You just need to open the original image and apply the sharpening again by opening the preset file in FocalBlade.

Unfortunately Photoshop doesn't support adjustment layer plugins or using actions as adjustment layers, otherwise it would be much easier to solve this problem without having to save big files with a lot of layers.