Happy Saturday everyone!  Tiki here.

I’ve tried several methods of sharpening my layouts before I upload them to the web.  I thought I would share with you today, my new favorite sharpening method.  It’s simple and I think it’s the perfect amount of sharpening.  Give it a try and see what you think.

Here is the layout I’ll show as an example.  Here it is saved in .psd format with an image size of 12 inches by 12 inches at a resolution of 300 pixels/inch.

The first step is to flatten your image.

The second step is to reduce your image size to 600 pixels by 600 pixels at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch.

The third step is to duplicate your flattened layer.

The fourth step is to run the high pass filter on the top layer you just created.

I like to use a radius setting of 0.3

The fifth step is to change the blending mode of the top layer from normal to Linear Light.  If you find this setting to be too bright, you can try some of the different blending modes for a more subtle effect.

The sixth step is to flatten your image again and add a hue/saturation adjustment layer.

I usually bump up the Saturation to between +8 to +10

The last step is to save your resized layout for the web making sure the size falls below 150K (the average size for most uploads of layouts on digital scrapbooking sites).

Here is my layout before sharpening.

Here is my layout after sharpening with the above method.

I hope you found this little tip helpful.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!