[Leica] Focus Magic question

[images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley)]

At 03:35 AM 6/22/2006, you wrote:
>Which leads to my question:  In Photoshop, can you apply the Focus 
>Magic plug-in through a mask?  The purpose would be to use it to 
>sharpen the in-focus portion of the picture only, leaving the rest 
>untouched.  Or, to apply a small "blur width" to the subject, then 
>reverse the mask and do a second pass to bring a slightly 
>out-of-focus background into better focus.  Is this possible in 
>Photoshop, PS Elements, or other plug-in compatible programs?
>
>Thanks!
>--Peter

         Peter - The way I do this is to use the history brush.  Set 
the history brush on the step before Focus Magic or on a snapshot set 
before you run Focus Magic.  Use the history brush to restore 
untouched portions.  You can also do the reverse and set the history 
brush on the Focus Magic step to brush in focus.
         I do like Focus Magic when the whole photo needs a slight 
sharpening but, the software I like better than Focus Magic for spot 
sharpening is PhotoKit Sharpener.  It has three sharpeners - one for 
capture, one creative, and one for output.  The creative one works 
with a brush and you can set many different degrees of sharpening. 
http://www.pixelgenius.com/sharpener/index.html

Tina

Tina Manley, ASMP, NPPA
http://main.nc.us/openstudio/tinamanley/thumbnail_directory.htm