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Just about every image that passes through Photoshop is sharpened at some point. [Bryan O'Neil Hughes, Sr. Product Manager-Photoshop] Most images are sharpened globally. The entire image is sharpened either in Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen. If you want to sharpen just a selected area of the image, however, what you need to do is duplicate a layer, sharpen the whole thing, and then erase all of the areas that you don't want to be sharpened-- sort of counterintuitive. Wouldn't it be great if you had a tool that allowed you to just brush the area that you want sharpened? Well, for a long time now, Photoshop has had a tool like that. It's a very old tool. It's called the Sharpen tool. And as you notice, it introduces a lot of artifacts. Well, one of the new features in Photoshop CS5 is that I can use the Sharpen tool, and it just works. There's a new feature called Protect Detail. It's on by default. What it allows me to do is brush-based, pressure-sensitive sharpening without adding any artifacts at all. It's a great Hidden Gem in Photoshop CS5, and it's fantastic for all sorts of users and all sorts of work flows.
