Sharpening an image can be quite painful. Photoshop CS2 has a new sharpen filter, Smart Sharpen. DeBabelizer offers a Convolution filter with more than a dozen parameters to set. The proof of the pudding in this case is in viewing on-screen whether enough sharpening has been applied. nik Multimedia believe they can do better.

The question is: can they? The answer is they can. Sharpener Pro 2 is a sharpening filter which takes the pain out of sharpening because you really don’t nee to know anything about Unmask Sharpen and such complicated concepts.

Sharpener Pro 2 has about a dozen sharpening techniques to choose from. Each selection is aimed at a type of output device. Depending on the device, you choose the sharpener. There’s a choice for everyone (in the Complete Ed.): screen, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, and generic inkjet printers, Fuji Pictography printers, Lab Photographic, Halftone, and Dye-sublimation.

All version sof Sharpener Pro 2 also come with a RAW pre-sharpener filter. The Sharpener filter now has a palette like nik Multimedia’s Color Efex Pro has. The palette has buttons for applying the filter to selective areas with a brush, or to the whole image with a paint can.

The sharpening filter itself is intelligent and automatic. All you need to do is select your output device, the paper type, the number of inks, a viewing distance, and a resolution. Through a background process, called Autoscan, Sharpener Pro 2 takes a number of decisions to sharpen your image or parts of it.

Sharpening parts of an image is done by brushing the areas you want to sharpen. If you are not satisfied with the results on the screen --although these do not exactly reflect what will be printed; which is obvious if your unique selling proposition revolves around sharpening tuned to output devices-- you can go back to the palette, click on the Advanced button and select up to five colours that you want to sharpen less or more than the overall default.

My experience with Sharpener Pro 2 has been excellent, but not with all photographs. I used a HP Photosmart 7450 as my photo output device. I took several photos of which I knew sharpening them would rapidly show ugly halos and artefacts as a result of over-sharpening.

With the viewing distance set to anything else than “Auto”, I managed to fool Sharpener Pro 2 with these photographs, but not when I left the settings in their default state. That was a nice surprise, because if this behaviour proved to be consistent, it meant you would never have to fine tune the sharpening filter at all. In 90% of the cases, I could indeed leave everything set to the automatic defaults.

In fact, turning off Autoscan for example, rapidly takes you into murky waters. Autoscan is a more or less intelligent analysis algorithm which by the looks of it, is better at judging an image’s sharpening requirements than my eye will ever be.

The selective sharpening feature proved to be great when you want to sharpen an object in an otherwise soft-focused photograph. It sort of pushes the object to the front in a gentle soort of way, not readily achieved by zooming in.

Conclusion

Does Sharpener Pro 2 replace Unsharp Mask or Smart Mask in Photoshop CS2? In 90% of the cases, it certainly does. In another 3% or so, you will want to use ot for its creative possibilities. In rare cases, you will find Photoshop’s own filters more familiar and therefore “safer”.

A nice touch of Sharpener Pro 2 is that it will effectively shorten the time you’re busy optimising photographs. The filter often works best when left at its default settings, which is an added benefit that you will never have when using Photoshop’s built-in sharpening tools.