A Question About Sharpening

I was wondering if anyone has a formula for sharpening images with mist/fog/ or heavy atmosphere? I understand that you wouldn't want to apply any sharpening to the "air" around the subject. But what about a situation where the mist/fog is covering the entire scene. To my knowledge, it would be near impossible to paint out any sharpening if there were an intricate subject such as a tree. Also, what if the atmosphere is heavy enough to pick up some sharpening grainy appearance, even when covering the subjuct in the back ground? Is this a situation that you just would not apply any sharpening at all? The image in question is in my gallery. "An Oh Shhht Moment". It looks okay at web size, but the 14x20 I have prepared shows a lot of sharpening artifacts in the mist where I could not brush it out with a mask. It also shows up on the trunks due to the mist in front. Any suggestions. I used an unsharp mask for the sharpening of amount 425, radius .6, and threshold 0. Is that the wrong way to approach an image of this type?

Thanks,
Chris

I don't know if this will help or not. I don't use PS to sharpen anything I'm going to print. I use PK Sharpener instead, and find it does a better job IMO. I haven't tried sharpening an image with the same issue you're havng though, so I don't know if it would do a better job or not in this instance. PK Does a very nice job overall though.

Give this edge masking & sharpening tutorial a quick read (scroll the page down just a bit).
I've used this technique for scenes such as you describe and it worked great!

John, thank you so much for the link to that article! I've saved it in my "How-to" files. For those of us who can't afford to buy all these extra programs, I'm grateful for these folks who generously offer their tips that way.

Yes, thank you both for the suggestions and sharing. I appreciate it.

Chris

The sharpening settings you list would generate heavy sharpening of individual pixels relative to their neighbors. That would account for the "grainy appearance" you mention. In fog images I would want to alter tone differences much more broadly and keep it subtle. You might want to try a reverse strategy of low amount, perhaps as low as 3-5 but no more than 10, and a broad radius. Start at 50 or 60 for the radius. Leave your threshold at 0. Reversing the normal strategy for unsharp masking will alter the local contrast between large areas rather than the individual pixels. You could raise the threshold significantly if you are still seeing graininess. Part of the problem with sharpening is that it works only where there are significant differences in the tonality of adjacent pixels, as along an edge. In fog photos the edges tend to be blurred by the mist and edges resolve across several pixels of graduated tone. I'd have to see the image (I couldn't find it in your gallery) but I'm not at all sure that I would apply a lot (if any) sharpening since sharp edges will destroy the visual effect of "fog".