How to sharpen a digital image in Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0

First, why would you want to? Well, due to the way a digital image is captured, it is not as sharp as it could be. Some digital cameras have options to do in-camera sharpening but this can lead to an image being over-sharpened and “fake” looking. So, after taking our digital images, we sharpen them with software before printing or sending them anywhere. This is accomplished in many pieces of software in different methods, but one I like is Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. In this software, you go to FILTER-SHARPEN-UNSHARP MASK. You should see a screen like below:

The amount is where you will make your greatest change. I find that amounts between 50-250 give very good results.

The radius should usually be between .3-1.0

The threshold should almost always be 0.

Once in the window you can click on the Preview checkbox to see the effect on the photo.

Once you like the result you click on OK and save the file. One thing to note, ALWAYS sharpen after most other actions including re-sizing.

Here are some examples of a .jpg that was resized to 600x450, the first one is just re-sized and the second one is sharpened after the fact. You should see a noticeable difference in the 2 pictures.