Color Correction Look Book: Creative Grading Techniques for Film and Video

Chapter 19. Sharpening

Sharpening, like blur, is a convolution filtering operation. Found in pretty much every editing, compositing, and grading application, sharpening generally works by increasing the contrast of specific combinations of adjacent pixels in order to exaggerate detail in the shot. Sharpening doesn’t actually add new information; it simply makes it easier to discern what information there is.

Used effectively, sharpening can increase the definition of subjects within the frame, add a gritty texture to a shot you want to punch up, or make subtle soft-focus issues less of a problem. However, not all sharpening filters are created equal, and at their worst, sharpening can exaggerate noise, cause ringing around edges, introduce unwanted ...