Do You High Pass?

Okay, so what am I talking about here? What is high pass? Is it a new version of the chest pass in basketball? No. It is not. It’s a way to sharpen your images in Photoshop. I know, I know, you PS geeks out there are saying, “Unsharp Mask is better.” Well, that may be true in certain instances. However, high pass focusing on the sharpening of edges. Anything that is not an edge is left alone. Trust me this is a good thing.

Let’s say your attempting to pop a subject in the foreground. Your trying to get some punch. Well, let the high pass filter take care of that.

Step 1 – Find your image

This guy is awesome

Go hit up your stock photo site of choice or grab an image from your own library. I tend to use high pass on a wide range of subjects. Using high pass on human subjects can sometimes provide a worn and weathered look. In this case, that’s what I’m going for.

So bring your image into Photoshop and let’s get going.

Step 2 – The high pass layer

Go ahead and duplicate your original layer by dragging the layer over the “new layer” icon to duplicate it. You’ll then want to set the blend mode of your new layer to “overlay.” Make sure this layer is on top of the original. With that layer selected go to Filter -> Other -> High Pass…

Overlay, and high pass filter

Step 3 – Final adjustments (but you can be done if you want)

You should be able to see the beauty of the high pass filter at this point. Of course, you can continue to make other adjustments. In fact, you probably should because we haven’t touched levels, curves, etc. I would also recommend running your high pass filter after you’ve done your color correction and touch up work. It’s a last step type of thing. Here is the comparison. Notice the punch?

Comparison, high pass on the right

Final image

Final