Adobe® Photoshop® CS2 Studio Techniques

Advanced Mode

The Smart Sharpen filter also offers an advanced mode, which allows you to control the strength of the sharpening that will be applied to the shadows and highlights of the image (Figure 12.51). This can be useful in instances when a considerable amount of noise is present in the dark portion of an image. In Advanced Mode, you'll be presented with a Fade Amount slider, which determines the strength of the sharpening effect, a Tonal Width setting, which determines the brightness range that will be affected by the sharpening, and a Radius setting, which determines how the sharpening effect will blend into the surrounding image. I usually start with the Fade setting at 100% and the Radius at 3 so that I can see the full effect of the ...