Make edges crisper inside a photo with unsharp mask, high-pass, Laplacian or Sobel boosting. Set intensity and radius, compare before and after, and download.
Adds contrast exactly where brightness changes so edges look more defined, while flat areas stay as they are. Unsharp and High-pass compare the image with a blurred copy and push the difference back in, which is how print and camera sharpening works. Laplacian and Sobel measure edges with a 3 × 3 kernel and add that measurement to the pixel, which gives a crisper, more graphic result. The dimensions and colours of the picture are unchanged; only local contrast moves.
A 6000 × 4000 camera photo resized to 1600 × 1067 for a website comes out slightly soft; Unsharp at 50 percent with a 1.5 px radius restores the crispness lost in scaling, and the file grows only from about 420 KB to 450 KB at JPEG quality 85. A 2400 × 3200 scan of a printed page benefits from Sobel at 40 percent, which thickens the letter strokes without adding halos. High-pass at 35 percent with a 3 px radius lifts fine texture in a landscape without touching the sky.
Use it after resizing, on scans, on slightly soft phone photos and on screenshots that were scaled. Do it last in your editing chain and only once; sharpening twice stacks halos. Do not use it on noisy night shots without running Remove Noise first, because grain counts as edges. For a simple one-slider sharpen, Sharpen Image is quicker; for extracting the outlines rather than boosting them, use Edge Detection.
Unsharp is the standard sharpen; High-pass is gentler on large tonal areas; Laplacian gives single-pixel crispness; Sobel brightens edges rather than sharpening them, which suits line art. Intensity sets how much edge contrast is added; above 80 you will see bright and dark halos along edges. Radius applies to Unsharp and High-pass and sets how wide a detail can be before it counts as an edge: 1 to 2 px for screen images, 3 to 5 px for large prints. Output Same keeps the original file type.
What is the difference between this and Sharpen Image? Sharpen Image is one unsharp mask with a threshold to protect smooth skin and sky. This tool offers four methods, including Laplacian and Sobel, for a more graphic or more selective result.
Why do I see bright outlines around objects? Those are halos from too much intensity or too large a radius. Drop the intensity below 60 or the radius below 2 px, or switch to High-pass.
Should I sharpen before or after resizing? After. Resizing softens the image slightly; a light pass at the final size gives the cleanest result.
Does it add noise? It amplifies noise that is already there, because grain looks like tiny edges. Run Remove Noise first on high-ISO photos.
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