Sharpness Tutorial

Sharpness is a key issue in microstock photography. There are tons of forums and converstations about which lens is the sharpest, how you should edit for maximum detail, etc. Since microstock agencies are expecting perfection, images need to be incredibly crisp and detailed in order to get accepted. There needs to be a clear focus point in every image that is “pin sharp”. In this post I want to offer a few tips on achieving sharp images with a digital slr and how to increase sharpness using Photoshop or Elements (without adding considerable noise).
Capturing Sharp Images
I highly recommend using autofocus with digital slrs when shooting for microstock. I find that the best method for me is to choose a specific autofocus point within my camera while shooting an image. With most digital slrs, there is a way to have the camera pick up all of the autofocus points or isolate a single one. I mostly shoot with a single autfocus point selected. This helps when shooting images of people because you can specifically focus on their eyes to achieve maximum sharpness. You can also choose an exact point of an object that you want to be the main focus point in the image. This works well no matter what aperture or depth of field using.

Image Editing For Sharpness
Every digital image needs at least a small amount of sharpening to achieve that crispness microstock agencies look for. The issue is that regular sharpening in Photoshop or Elements increases noise; and too much noise will get your image rejected. Below is a small tutorial of how to sharpen an image using the high pass filter in Photoshop.
1. Duplicate the background layer.
2. With the new layer highlighted select “filter > other > high pass”.
3. Change the “radius” until you can just see the outline of the key components in your image. Make sure that you are still at a point where you can’t pick out much detail, only lines. I find that a radius of 0.8 to 1.2 is ideal for an 8 megapixel image.
4. Select ok.
5. At this point your image should be neutral grey with a small amount of lines and detail. You can use the paintbrush with neutral grey selected to paint over areas of your image that you don’t want sharpened; like skin or smooth surfaces with patterns, etc.
6. Select the “background copy” layer if it isn’t already selected.
7. Change the blending mode of the “background copy” layer to “overlay” (you can use “soft light” blending if you want less sharpening effect and “hard light” blending if you want more sharpening effect).
8. Flatten your image by selecting “layer > flatten image”.
This should help your image out considerably without increasing noise. If your image is still not crisp enough then you can try downsizing it slightly to increase sharpness. I would recommend about 10% intervals until you feel it is sharp enough for the microstocks. Just make sure not to downsize too much or your image may not be accepted (and if it is you might not be able to sell the larger sizes which make you more money than the smaller sizes).