Originally Posted by jjswee

If you don't understand my rambling, let me know and ill try to explain it more.

I don't understand your ramblings. What specifically are you trying to achieve? What version photoshop?

Can't you just add a hue/saturation adjustment layer and and rather than increasing saturation, run the sliders to the negative side?

And for filters, why not duplicate your layer, run the filter, see the effect and adjust opacity on the duplicate layer?

Apologies if I'm completely misunderstanding your problems, I've just never encountered them before.

Originally Posted by jjswee

Say I sharpen a layer but decide later that it was too much. How can I set it up where I will be able to remove/edit the sharpening?

there are two main ways... doing it in another layer or doing it with smart filters.

smart filters basically do not rasterize the effects of the filter. in other words, it is not rendered down to specific pixel RGB values, but rather kept in a "delta" state.

they can obviously suck up a lot of processing power because they are dynamic, but they can work really well for trying out different filter effects that cannot be placed in a discreet adjustment layer before you commit.

you can use any filter you want, such as unsharp mask, etc, as a smart filter to tweak and readjust until you are satisfied.

as far as doing it in a different layer, do not forget the tried and true HPF/overlay method. basically copy the layer you want to sharpen, run a high pass filter on it, then set the layer blending mode to overlay.

the HPF will retain information only when pixel values change within a certain radius of action. basically it will be a representation of the edges of your image, both in color and luminosity. any large fields of solid color will be rendered 50% gray by the HPF. the overlay layer blending mode is a contrast enhancing mode which makes no change if the color is 50% gray, and will darken things that are more black than 50 and lighten things brighter than 50.

the downside to this method is that the radius of the HPF has a lot of control over the final outcome, but cannot be adjusted after the fact... that is, unless you use a smart filter so you retain the ability to go back and readjust.

while you're getting used to it, i suggest the following:

copy the layer desired to be sharpened
convert that layer to smart filters
apply a HPF filter at say radius 4px
set the layer blending mode to overlay

now you can toggle the layer on and off, as well as adjust opacity, to see the effects. also re-open the smart filter and readjust the radius of the HPF and observe what it does to the outcome. when you're done and happy, right click on the layer and rasterize it, which will "release" the smart filter.

i generally go one more step and apply a layer mask to the sharpen layer so that i can paint out things i DON'T want sharpened, but that's done on a subject by subject basis.

you can also experiment with desaturating the HPF layer to remove all chromaticity info. this changes the action of the overlay blending mode slightly.

Also, say 'Layer 1' has an adjustment-layer of desaturate. If I duplicate 'Layer 1', 'Layer 1 Copy' will be in color (desaturate is only an adjustment-layer, doesnt follow through with 'Duplicate Layer'). I guess I could copy the desaturate-adjust-layer, but I would like to not have to do this.

simple--just put the desat layer at the top of the heap of layers and it will act on all of them. top layer "wins" so to speak.

ken

yeah, layer masks work on any layers you want, so if it's not an available adjustment layer, dupe the layer, make the adjustments to the new layer, then make a mask for the new layer.

I'm sure that's what Ken said, but it seems he's even more long winded than I am...