May 29, 2015

How To Sharpen Image in GIMP

Making sure your images are sharp is a necessity. By applying sharpening effect, we can remove fuzziness from our images. In this tutorial, you will learn how to sharpen an image in GIMP using Filters>Enhance>Unsharp Mask command. If you want to enhances fine details, you can use high pass filter, instead.

For this tutorial, I will be using GIMP 2.10.18. If you don’t already have The GIMP, you can download it from https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Let's get started!
How To Sharpen Image in GIMP
Final result.



If you liked my tutorials, please subscribe to my YouTube channel - JTSGraph.

Jump to:
Step 1: Open Image
Use File>Open (or Ctrl+O). 
File>Open.

In the “Open Image” dialog, navigate through your folders in the Places panel and the Name panel until your images' name appears in the Name panel. Click the image you want to open. Click Open. 
Select your image.

For this GIMP tutorial, I'll use this image, 1185279, downloaded from Pixabay.
Open your image.

Step 2: Duplicate Layer
Preserve your original image by duplicating the image layer. Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer (or Shift+Ctrl+D). 
Layer>Duplicate Layer.

This creates a new perfect copy of the currently active layer just above. 
We will apply the unsharp mask filter to this duplicate layer.

Step 3: Zoom Image up to 100%
Use View> Zoom>1:1 (100%). This option maximizes the image.
Use View> Zoom>1:1 (100%).

Step 4: Apply the Unsharp Mask filter On Duplicate Layer
Activate the duplicate layer by clicking on it.
Click the duplicate layer.

Then use Filters>Enhance>Sharpen (Unsharp Mask)
Filters>Enhance>Sharpen (Unsharp Mask).

In the Unsharp Mask pop-up window, enter a value for the Radius, Amount and Threshold either through the up and down arrows or with the slider.
Unsharp Mask pop-up window.
  • Radius, adjusts how many pixels on either side of an edge you wish to process. 
  • Amount, strength of sharpening.
  • Threshold, the minimum difference in pixel values that indicates an edge where sharpen must be applied.
If you're not happy with the result, you can quickly undo a step at any time by going to Edit>Undo or else just pressing Ctrl+Z
Edit>Undo.

Experiment with different values and discover values that works best for your image. Once you are satisfied with the result, click "OK" to apply them to the image.

And here is the image after applying unsharp mask filter:
How To Sharpen image With GIMP.

Step 5: Save Your Document
Use File>Save or press Ctrl+S
File>Save.

In the “Save Image” dialog, type your document's name in the “Name” box and save it. 
Type your document's name.

It's better you save it using the extension “.xcf”. XCF is GIMP's native format, and is useful because it stores everything about your image and will allow you to later edit your image in GIMP, in case you notice a problem. 

Once you have finished, you will probably also want to export the image, using File>Export As, in a more widely used format, such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, etc.
File>Export As.

Choose JPEG or PNG then click Export.
Choose JPEG or PNG then click Export.

More on GIMP Tutorials:

No comments:

Post a Comment