Sharpening photos taken at higher ISOs is a tricky thing, as you run the risk of making the appearance of noise much worse very quickly. This helpful video will show you how to sharpen high-ISO photos to enhance detail while still reducing noise.
Coming to you from Blake Rudis at f64 Academy, this video will show you the ins and outs of sharpening high-ISO photos in Photoshop (or Lightroom) while reducing noise. High-ISO files tend to have much less latitude, so it's important to be very precise in your edits. As Rudis shows, noise reduction and sharpening are interdependent, and you can't consider one without also taking into account the other. The biggest takeaway, I think, however, is that it's less about the amount of sharpening you apply (though that of course still matters) and more about masking it in carefully so areas of nuance show more refinement, while broad, uniform sections of the image (where noise is more immediately apparent and sharpening isn't needed) are left untouched, making the noise reduction more effective and resulting in a better overall photo. If you're someone who spends a lot of time in less-than-ideal lighting conditions (like a wedding photographer), really dialing in this skill will help you improve the overall quality of your output.
Too often people are afraid of raising their ISO. While it's indisputable that lower ISO is preferable for preserving maximum image quality, there is no reason to fear raising the ISO if it means you can get a shot that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
Sometimes for sure! If you're shooting on an ISO invariant camera, sure, keep it a little low. But if you're shooting on something like a 5D Mark III, your files will look drastically better if you get the exposure right in camera.
Yeah ISO is a critic element in the triangle. Tha's what it is called "triangle". Is the last one we have to raise if we want a clean archive but definitely is miraculous what can be achieved today with intelligent ISO use. I find that if you get the histogram to the right edge using the ISO when necessary, you have better levels of noise, and generally when you do that you have to twitch down the exposure a little which is good to for noise reduction in near black areas
That was one fine video on sharpening I subscribed. He does an excellent job of explaining it.
Awesome, I can definitely use this I shoot high iso often
While you could do this in Photoshop, I would love if you split noise reduction into shadows/midtones/highlights in Lightroom. That's a neat functionality and a nice result you got!
This was helpful. I usually use the High Pass filter for sharpening, but PS still requires me to go through the handful of steps required to execute it for some reason -- I would have thought there's be a solution that does all of that for you. So this is a good alternative.
For sharpening high ISO shots, my favorite technique for Photoshop is to 1. Create a stamped layer, 2. Desaturated it, 3. Change blend mode to “Linear Light”, 4. Apply a high pass filter (play with various radii..usually 1.5 to 8 depending on subject), 5. Denoise the layer using NIK/NoiseNinja/etc. (apply high noise reduction and detail preservation to where noise is flattened but edges still visible), 6. Adjust layer opacity to eliminate ringing and other artifacts (typically to less than 50%...often times to under 30%), 7. Mask as needed (i.e., you don’t really want to sharpen Sky, clouds, or water).