<x-charset ISO-8859-1>on 1/11/01 11:11 AM PST, Donald A Schiemann wrote: > I tried the procedure you described, first using Layer from Background, > then Filter>Other to select Soft Light, and used a Radius of 20 (too high > according to your last message), and then the High Pass filter. The image > was distorted. How do you return it to its original state with the > sharpening applied? This is not Bruce, but- If you flattened your file, you might be out of luck "to return it to it's original state". Otherwise, just trash the dupe layer and start from scratch- It doesn't sound as if you you are following all the steps- 1. Make a dupe of your layer or background image. 2. Choose Hardlight (or Softlight) as the blending mode 3. Under Filter Menu, choose other, then High Pass. 4. Select about 4 - 6 pixels for a 20 megabyte image, or just fiddle with it until you like what you see. You would rarely use more than 10. 5. Reduce the opacity of the hardlight layer to about 50 Percent Bruce Fraser added- As you adjust the radius setting on the High Pass filter, you'll see the sharpening effect change, particularly the width of the sharpening halo. Getting the halo to be the right size is, IMHO, the critical factor in sharpening whether you use high pass/hard light or USM. A good radius setting varies with the resolution and the content of the image. One of the problems with any sharpening is that it exaggerates grain and noise as well as edges. You can make an edge mask, load it as a selection, and duplicate only the selected background pixels, then use high pass/hard light. >From Sven Körber- I usually adjust the high pass radius whie looking at Actual Pixels view, with the layer's opacity set to 100%, and I deliberately oversharpen a little, then back off the layer's opacity to produce the ideal sharpening. I typically use a radius between 1 and 10. I discovered that it can be beneficial to completely desaturate the High Pass Layer to avoid colour shifts in certain parts of the image (when working with colour material to begin with, of course). Also, for pictures scanned from high-speed emulsions, some smart blurring of the high pass layer can alleviate additional graininess. David Corwin - Turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions. </x-charset>