TUTORIAL ARTICLE

Beginner

5 min

How to sharpen a photo nondestructively

Make your photos look sharper.

Note: Stock assets provided are for practice purposes only. See terms .

What you learned

Understand how sharpening works

Sharpening increases the contrast at image edges, making in-focus areas of a photo look sharper.

Sharpen a photo nondestructively

Before applying a sharpening filter, like Unsharp Mask, convert the photo into a smart object. This allows you to sharpen without permanently altering your photo and gives you the option to change the sharpening effect later.

Use the Unsharp Mask filter to sharpen a photo

The Unsharp Mask filter is a relatively simple way to sharpen a photo. Drag the Amount slider to set the strength of the sharpening effect and the Radius slider to control the width of the sharpening effect at image edges. There’s also a Threshold slider you can use to avoid sharpening grain or smooth areas.


Instruction by

Jan Kabili

Adobe Stock Contributor

Fotobieshutterb

19 April 2023

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