>Would you please explain Photoshop's unmask?
You will get MUCH better results using the unsharp mask filter. I know the filter name is counter-intuitive, but the term relates back to a wet darkroom process of the same name. You need to be careful with the various setting options when using unsharp mask or you can start to see nasty artifacts like halos around edges in the image. As a rough start, I would suggest the following settings:
Amount: 40% to 80% Radius: 0.5 to 0.7 pixels Threshold: 0
Increase the radius and the amount too much, and you will see those over-sharpening artifacts real quick. Check out this link to a nice article on sharpening in Photoshop:
The beauty of Fred Miranda's plug-in action is that it creates a mask so you only sharpen the edges of picture elements, without sharpening the grain structure in areas of the image that don't benefit from sharpening, like skin tones or sky. I highly recommend it. Here's the link:
Choose the "Essential Digital Darkroom" category, then look for the FM Edge Sharpen PRO action. This is a really neat little action that I use all the time.
My apologies to the list if this is drifting off topic, but I've found it to be essential stuff for getting the digital best from that sweet little sonnar on my Contax T!
Bob Kramer
