Easy Image Sharpening with Unsharp Mask in Photoshop 156 SHARES Share Tweet Pinterest Learn how to sharpen images with Unsharp Mask, the easiest, most basic and most oddly-named sharpening filter in Photoshop! A step-by-step tutorial for Photoshop CC and earlier. Written by Steve Patterson While it sounds like something that takes away sharpness, Unsharp Mask gets its name from a traditional photography darkroom technique where a copy of the original photo is blurred, or "unsharpened", and then applied to the original image as a mask. As strange as it sounds, this blurring method actually results in a sharper image. Photoshop's Unsharp Mask filter works the same way. The only difference is that the whole process is now digital, and Photoshop handles all of the confusing stuff behind the scenes. In fact, you don't need to know a thing about unsharp masking to use the Unsharp Mask filter. All you need to know is how to drag a few sliders to