Get Ultra-Sharpen 6.0 Pro for $12.50 until September 15th

[James Fee]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.ultrasharpen.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.ultrasharpen.com/</a><br /><br /></div>"<i>Ultra-Sharpen 6.0 Pro is fast, easy and now thanks to new Dual Single Pass Multi-Sector Adaptable Sharpening technology Ultra-Sharpen 6.0 Pro is even more powerful and flexible. Ultra-Sharpen 6.0 Pro now allows you to create two different sharpening matrices and apply sharpening separately to each one. What does this mean for you? It means you can setup two different matrices to sharpen completely different areas of the same image with each matrix having its own sharpening amount. For example you can setup one to sharpen only the weakest edges in the image and apply a stronger amount to this matrix and then using the second matrix you can go after the stronger edges that in general need less sharpening and apply a different amount of sharpening to them. </i>"<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/all_sample.jpg" /> <br /><br />One of the easiest ways to improve your digital photography is to sharpen the photos. Ultra-Sharpen takes care of the details and simplifys the process. You can use Photoshop's unsharp mask filter, but if you don't know what you are doing, you won't get good results. The image above shows how much more harsh the unsharp mask is than Ultra-Sharpen. From now until September 15th 2004 you can purchase the Ultra-Sharpen E-mail Package for $12.50 and the Ultra-Sharpen 6.0 Pro CD package for $20.00 with free shipping.

[Neil Enns]

Has anyone tried this? How does it compare to something like Noise Ninja?

Neil

[dehakal]

Unsharp Mask is a continuum not a specific setting and can be subtle or harsh depending on the settings

[James Fee]

Unsharp Mask is a continuum not a specific setting and can be subtle or harsh depending on the settingsTrue, but my point was unless you know what you are doing, you'll make a mess of your photo. I think the idea behind these plugins is you can get that "soft" effect without having to know anything about unsharp mask.

[Crocuta]

I just grabbed this because I do have times when I want to only sharpen certain areas and the price seemed pretty good. I haven't had time to try anything but the automatic feature, but here's what I've gathered so far.

This isn't a plug-in filter but an automation. That is, this is doing a series of steps for you that you could do yourself if you only knew how. It goes through a series of about 6-8 steps, sometimes repeating them with different settings on different parts of the image. I ran it though 3-4 images and each image was subtley better than the original. It doesn't give you that 'wow' difference that you see with something like NeatImage on noisy images, but when you look at the before next to the after, it has definitely improved the image.

A few caveats... it will only work on a flattened image which can be a pain if you have an image with more than one layer. I would like to see it operate on the selected layer. Also, it will not work on 16-bit images in PS CS. They say there's nothing they can do because this is using built-in features of PS and not all of those features are available for 16-bit images.

Anyway, I think this is worth the price. There have been some really difficult images that I just can't get right and this will be an excellent tool to help me with those. Also, remember that I have not gotten into adjusting the settings at all. I'm sure one I get that figured out, that this will be even more useful.