What is the difference between unsharp mask and smart sharpen?

[adann]

I understand the settings but I'd like to understand what's different about how they work.

I'd like to be able to explain the difference in effects broadly to my students, but not just A is better than B or everyone uses A.

I've also gotten interested in multipass and hybrid sharpening so understanding differences will help me understand the effects I'm layering and how they might interact.

For example, one issue with USM was that it sharpened everything and photographers had to work out ways to focus the effect on the areas that needed it the most (see Michael Reichmann's 2008 article in Luminous Landscape: https://luminous-landscape.com/smart-sharp/ -- might be members-only content).  Does Smart Sharpen focus the effect algorithmically?  I also know that SS has built-in threshold management.  Anything else?

If anyone knows of good tutorials on advanced sharpening techniques like multipass or hybrid sharpening, I'd love to see them.  Jeff Schewe's technique for creative progressive sharpening in The Digital Negative and JP Caponigro's article in Digital Photo Pro (https://www.digitalphotopro.com/revolution/double-pass-and-hybrid-sharpening/ ) got me started on this.

Any help you can offer would be appreciated.

Alec

[mglush]

Hi! I was just reading another thread in the Photoshop for Beginners forum and came across this thread:

Correcting sharpness

Scroll down to read Norman's explanation. I am not sure if it will answer everything you're asking, but it's a good place to start.

Michelle