Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Step Five
The last sharpening slider, Masking, is to
me the most amazing one of all, because
what it lets you do is control exactly where
the sharpening is applied. For example,
some of the toughest things to sharpen
are things that are supposed to be soft,
like a child's skin, or a woman's skin in a
portrait, because sharpening accentuates
texture, which is exactly what you don't
want. But, at the same time, you need
detail areas to be sharp—like their eyes,
hair, eyebrows, lips, clothes, etc. Well, this
Masking slider lets you do just that—it
kind of masks away the skin areas, so it's
mostly the detail areas that get sharpened.
To show how this work s , we're going to
switch to a portrait.
Step Six:
First, press-and-hold the Option (PC:
Alt) key and then click-and-hold on the
Masking slider, and your image area will
turn solid white (as shown here). What this
solid white screen is telling you is that the
sharpening is being applied evenly to every
part of the image, so basically, everything's
getting sharpened.
