Web Sharp Panel Tutorials
This page provides a comprehensive tutorial to using both the free and Pro Web Sharpening Panels from Greg Benz Photography (see a brief summary of the additional Pro features here). These panels are designed to allow you to quickly and easily create high-quality versions of your images for sharing online.
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*** Note: This page covers both the free and Pro version of the panel. Any feature marked with three asterix is exclusive to the Pro panel.
Key topics on this page include:
Overview
Both the free and Pro Web Sharp panels offer:
Web Sharp Pro additionally offers:
Note: Both are UXP panels which require Photoshop 2021 or later. Windows and MacOS (including with Apple Silicon) are fully supported.
The main panel includes several buttons (and a flyout menu at top-right):
These buttons are described in detail below. Additionally, there is a "flyout" menu option (via the three-bars menu icon at top-right of the panel) with the following options:
Sharpen
This button will immediately start exporting the current image using the settings specified (see below). This provides a quick and simple way to create your output. If you wish to process multiple source images, just click this button while viewing each image. You may also initiate sharpening via the "Options" button, which may be preferable if you are frequently changing settings from one image to the next.
It will also use any visible crop overlays (which offer a few advanced options such as rows/columns). The crop overlays will be used (instead of the Quick Export settings) anytime the current document contains valid overlays which are visible . If there are active valid crop overlays in the image, then the image will be processed multiple times (once per overlay). You may also use overlays when their group is hidden if you check the appropriate option in Settings (which is a handy way to save the overlays without leaving them visible).
Quick Export (dropdown)
There are two basic ways to specify settings for your export. You can use the "quick export", which includes the dropdown and sizes in the main panel along with the Quick Export tab in settings. Or you an use add an "overlay" as described further below. Most users will only use the quick export method. The overlays allow a few more advanced options (including splitting the image into rows and columns, saving custom masks for local sharpening and grain, or visual overlays to help assist in cropping choices).
The quick export method is used by default unless your image contains a crop overlay. The dropdown should be chosen, and then you may optionally enter dimensions (if applicable for the chosen dropdown). The free panel includes options for using the original document ratio or custom dimensions. The Pro panel includes numerous additional quick export presets:
Settings
[Settings]: Quick Export tab ***:
For a borders demo, see the video below.
You can choose to crop or fill your image. Cropping will remove excess pixels so that the maximum image area is kept in the target aspect ratio (based on your chosen output size). Filling will add extra pixels outside the image in order to expand it to fit the target aspect ratio.
There are three cropping options:
* For a cropping demo, see the video below (part of "new features in v5, part 3 of 3").
There are two+ fill options:
See the example gallery and borders video below for examples of these various options.
Note that the keep full image options often look best with the drop shadow enabled. You may tweak solid colors or the drop shadow if you choose the "keep image open" setting (or hold <shift> when you click sharpen). You can then tweak the output and click the green "Save" button in the panel when you're done.
Your experience with Web Sharp Pro is also affected by settings with Photoshop. I recommend customizing the PS crop tool as follows:
Demo: Borders:
Demo: Cropping:
[Settings]: Quick Export Editor ***:
With the Pro panel, you may add your own custom quick export templates, sort the list, and hide any options you do not wish to use. Just go to Settings / Main / Edit quick export sizes to invoke the editor.
The quick export editor is organized into 3 parts. On the left is the list of all presets, this shows the current sort order and clicking on one will then allow you to edit it (or you may double-click a preset to quickly toggle its visible/hidden status).
On the right are options to edit the currently selected preset, including:
On the bottom are several options:
If you wish to add a platform or usage which is not in the panel, I recommend doing a Google search to find the latest guidelines applicable to your use. For example, Hootsuite put out this great guide to popular platforms in 2021:
[Settings]: Sharpening / Grain tab:
The sharpening section includes:
The grain section allow you to add optional film grain to the final output, which may be of particular interest for portraiture.
[Settings] File tab:
All of these settings may be adjusted interactively when you leave the image open, which will result in a Smart Object with a Camera RAW Filter. Just open the filter in ACR by double-clicking it and head to the "Effects" section. The size and roughness sliders may be hidden, in which case you should click the little white triangle to the right of the grain slider to show these hidden sliders.
Standard options (top group):
These settings affect the quality, file format, and colorspace (if the source image is HDR / 32-bit, then the settings in the next group may take priority). These settings include:
Options for HDR source images (2nd group):
These options only apply if your source image is HDR (ie 32-bit). If that applies, the settings in this section take priority over the standard options:
Tone mapping methods:
The output group at the bottom allows you to control the following:
[Settings]: Watermark tab: ***
Watermarks allow you to add branding or other marks to protect your image from theft.
The appearance section includes
The size / placement section includes:
All of these settings may be adjusted interactively when you leave the image open, which will result in a Smart Object with a Camera RAW Filter. Just open the filter in ACR by double-clicking it and head to the "Effects" section. The size and roughness sliders may be hidden, in which case you should click the little white triangle to the right of the grain slider to show these hidden sliders.
Tips for working with watermarks:
[Settings]: Crop Overlay tab:
Most users can skip crop overlays, but they offer a few advanced uses such as splitting the image into rows/columns or custom overlays. The Overlay options may be accessed from within the Options dialog or by <ctrl/cmd>-clicking the Overlay button. It includes the following choices:
Save / Load Settings
Web Sharp Pro extensive list of settings allow you to customize nearly any aspect of your exports. Sometimes, certain groupings of settings logcially go together. For example, you might always add a secondary border and watermark when exporting a 1200px wide version for your website, but prefer to export a clean image for Instagram. The "Save / Load Settings" feature introduced in v5 allows you to change multiple settings all at the same time. See the video below for a quick overview. This feature allows use of "quick exports" instead of "crop overlays" for nearly all uses.
Tips for getting the most out of presets (Saved Settings):
Backing up your work
There are several good reasons to backup / export your work: The Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop (CCD, aka the installer for Photoshop and this panel) currently deletes all panel data if you uninstall the panel, and you may wish to use the same templates and settings on another computer or share with a friend.
For Web Sharp Pro users:
For those using the free panel:
Example Gallery (sample images and settings)
Here are some examples of various ways you may use the Pro panel to output an image and the corresponding settings underneath the image. All of the example images use 600px width (as uploaded, the size rendered on this website may be scale proportionally). For brevity, the settings are not full verbatims, but all of the settings here may be found in the Quick Export and Watermark tabs of the Pro panel.
#1: Original ratio (full image)
#1 plus: 8% inner border, auto color, drop shadow
#2: 1x1 crop, keep full image (fill with blur)
#3: 1x1 crop, keep full image (fill with color), 8% inner border, drop shadow
#4: 1x1 (square), 600px, interactive crop, 8% inner border, gray color, drop shadow, watermark (recolor black, 6% of final height, 10px offset, may mark border)
#4 changing watermark (70% opacity, 8% of final height, 15px offset, image only)
Batch Export ***
This Pro feature allows you to export numerous images at the same time. Just click the "Batch" button and then <ctrl/cmd> or <shift>-click to select the sources images you wish to use. Each individual image will be processed exactly as if it were the active image with the current settings in the panel and any overlay template you may have in the file. In combination with the Pro overlay templates, this allows you the ability to output potentially hundreds of images at once, each with their own unique crop, size, sharpening amount, and more.
Batch integration with Lightroom / Capture One ***
If you prefer to manage your images with another application, there are several ways to integrate with Web Sharp Pro. All these workflows are available to Lightroom (LR) and Capture One (CO) users. As Adobe Bridge does not let you add to the file name when exporting, the first workflow does not currently apply for Bridge.
Workflow #1: Export from LR / CO with a special name which trigger's WSP automation
This workflow is new in WSP v5.2 and allows direct integration with 3rd party apps so that you can export from programs like LR or CO and WSP will automatically process the images. There are two parts to this workflow. You need to set up preferred settings in WSP and then export from LR or CO with a specific approach. For a demonstration, see the video below (new features in v5, part 2 of 3).
To set up Web Sharp Pro, you may update your current settings or create various options via "Save / Load Settings". When automatic processing starts, you will see a list of options (just like when you click "Batch" and choose to process open images in WSP). There are a few differences from clicking the "Batch" button, including:
To set up LR, CO, or any third-party image management software with supporting options (sorry, Bridge does not support this), create an export template which creates temporary TIFs with the following settings:
Once you've set things up, the full workflow is as follows:
Limitations of this workflow:
Workflow #2: Open from LR / CO and then process open images in PS
Steps to use this workflow:
If you are working with LR:
Limitations of this workflow:
Workflow #3: WSP file picker
Steps to use this workflow:
You'll need the following setup in order to have any images which have edits (slider changes) in LR show up in PS with the same changes:
Limitations of this workflow:
To find Web Sharp Pro images in LR, use a search on keywords with "contains all" set to "Web Sharp:". You may also create a Smart Collection with the same search, which is a convenient way to start off any search with Web Sharp images, and you may then further search within those results as needed.
Layer Comps ***
This Pro feature allows you to export multiple different versions of your image all at once. For example, you might wish to apply different color grades, a series of text overlays, or show a sequence of editing steps for a tutorial post on Instagram.
If you process an image which uses "layer comps", the panel will offer to process all of them. If you opt to use this, the panel will create the same output (quick export or overlay templates) for each layer comp in the image.
To create a layer comp, just go to Window / Layer Comps to open this Photoshop panel. Update the layers for the first version of your image (show or hide adjustment layers, text layers, etc) as desired and then click the "create new layer comp" button in the panel (the + icon), give it a name, check the options which apply based on your variations (layer visibility, position, etc), and click OK. Repeat to create as many layer comps as you would like to use.
Note that the layer comp name is added as a keyword in the final output image, so that you may easily sort and search images if you are managing your exports in Lightroom.
Save via ACR (AVIF, HDR JPG) ***
There are a couple scenarios where saving your image will invoke the Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) interface. This includes:
The simplest workflow for saving through ACR during the export process:
AVIF (file format) ***
The AVIF file format is a new standard designed to help replace JPG. It offers substantially smaller file sizes as well as support for HDR. AVIF is supported by nearly all major browsers for SDR content (8 or 16-bit source files in Photoshop), while current HDR AVIF support is limited to the Chrome, Opera, and Brave browsers (but is likely to see widespread support in due time).
AVIF support in Web Sharp Pro (available in v4+) is depends on a (free) 3rd-party file format plugin for Photoshop. This plugin is only offered for Windows at this time (if you know how to port C++ code to MacOS and would like to help, please contact me or the developer of the plugin). You can verify which version of the plugin you have installed via in PS under Help > About Plugins > Av1 Image. You can download the latest version of that plugin here.
To use this option, simply choose AVIF in the general file format settings in Web Sharp Pro. When you export, you will be prompted to install that 3rd-party plugin if you have not done so already. No AVIF option will be shown on MacOS as the plugin is not available on MacOS at this time, however Web Sharp Pro can still greatly facilitate by creating TIFs which are ready to be converted to AVIF via Adobe Camera RAW.
There are two methods for exporting AVIF images from the panel:
AVIF file support is mixed at this time, but rapidly growing:
HDR (32-bit) images ***
HDR ("High Dynamic Range") images offer stunning improvements in image quality. Please see gregbenzphotography.com/hdr to learn all about it and set up your display properly.
Web Sharp Pro offers support to help export HDR (typically 32-bit) images from Photoshop as either HDR or SDR ("standard dynamic range"). This gives you the flexibility to share your image optimized for the capabilities of your audience's display capabilities. HDR images are typically 32-bits in Photoshop, but it should be noted that Lumenzia contains a feature to create 8/16-bit HDR images (which allows access to tools like the healing brush) and Web Sharp Pro is designed to use these special files as well.
See the file tab settings for full details on the options to manage HDR exports.
HDR gain map (Ultra HDR JPG) ***
The best way to share HDR images on the web is by using a "gain map". This is an enhancement of an image which offers the following benefits:
Currently, gain maps for the JPG format are supported and may be viewed with Chrome, Brave, Opera, and Edge (requiring enabling a development flag as of Sept 2023, but likely to be a mainstream feature soon). Google calls this format "Ultra HDR JPG".
To export a JPG gain map from your HDR (32-bit) source file:
Best ways to share with high quality
There are many surprising but important ways your JPGs may be manipulated or rendered after you have created them with Web Sharp Pro. Understanding these details may help you make important decisions around colorspace and JPG compression, as well as helping you choose platforms and workflows that best suit your goals for sharing your work.
A quick caveat: I can only test a small range of the available options, their capabilities may change over time (this section last updated April 2021), and I may have made a mistake or overlooked certain scenarios in my testing. So take all of this with an appropriate grain of salt and do you own testing (suggestions below on testing).
If you are hosting your own images on the web:
The good news is that support for embedded profiles these days is very good. The vast majority of your viewers will see images correctly with any embedded profile. However, due to the limitations of 8-bit images, some colorspaces are not a good choice. I would recommend targeting profiles with gammas 1.8 to 2.6 (ideally 2.2 to 2.4) and gamuts no larger than Rec.2020 for gammas that aren't in the target range. That leaves many great options including sRGB, P3, AdobeRGB, or Rec.2020 when sharing 8-bit JPG images for viewing only. Momentum appears to be behind webP as a growing format, but I don't believe there is a 16-bit specification and Photoshop does not yet support it (though most browsers do). It's unfortunate that JPEG2000 browser support is so limited.
So most people will properly see wide gamut images on your website (so long as you do not use any services which may reprocess your uploads). However, you may choose to stick with sRGB simply to be consistent given the following considerations with other uses because there are a lot of caveats (especially with social media).
If you are emailing an image:
I'm less certain how various email clients handle embedded profiles. The safe approach is to share sRGB unless you know the recipient is using a device and email platform/app which properly supports embedded profiles. And do not assume that your mail provider is just transmitting the images as is. If you want to avoid further re-compression of your image in Gmail for example, you should put the images into a ZIP or send a link to download.
Gmail:
Gmail has a very complicated set of things it does quietly. If you embed the image (visible in the body of the email), it will re-compress the image heavily (my 64k test image was squeezed to 12k and showed significant artifacts). If you send the image as an attachment (paperclip icon), it will not compress the image.
Bottom line: the best way to send images via Gmail (and perhaps other email services) is to either send your images inside a ZIP or as a link (to services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, etc) to prevent color changes or re-compression. Google Drive will preview with similar problems, but you will get the true original when you download from Google Drive (without having to shield the images inside a ZIP).
[Side note on PNGs: If you embed or attach a PNG in the sRGB or ProPhoto RGB colorspace, it will strip the profile, resulting in substantial color error for the ProPhoto image. But if you embed or attach a PNG in the Image P3 or Display P3 colorspace, it will preserve the profile. The logic there seems to be based on looking at PNGs as a web asset and trying to support wide gamut P3 images, but without properly supporting all non-sRGB profiles.]
If you are texting an image:
I'm less certain how various email clients handle embedded profiles. The safe approach is to share sRGB unless you know the recipient is using a device and email platform/app which properly supports embedded profiles. And do not assume that your mail provider is just transmitting the images as is. If you
For iPhone, go to Settings / Messages and turn "Low Quality Image Mode" off. This will minimize the amount of re-processing, but not prevent it entirely. Note that even with this off, the JPG will be compressed more aggressively and the resolution will be reduced. Note that iMessage sent from a computer behaves differently and keeps the resolution, but still re-compresses the JPG. If low quality mode is on, the file will be made much smaller yet. Additionally, the colorspace is automatically converted from wide gamuts to "Apple Wide Gamut Color Sharing Profile", P3 will be converted to sRGB if the image does not contain significant color outside the sRGB gamut (but will be converted to Apple Wide Gamut if the image has a lot of content outside the sRGB gamut), and you cannot disable this color behavior either. Apple has clearly put a tremendous amount of thought into how they can create smaller files that will be acceptable to most users. However, many photographers may hold things to a higher standard (especially images captured on a mirrorless camera or DSLR) and I am unaware of any way to send an image via iMessage which fully preserves the image exactly as it is on your phone.
I'm not sure what settings and behavior may affect Android, be sure to test that what you send via text is received in the same resolution, with its colorspace still embedded, and in the intended resolution.
Bottom line: SMS and iMessage are fine if the intention is for the recipient to view on their phone and then ignore/delete it. But you should expect a loss of quality when sharing images via text and this is not a good option if you anticipate they will print the image, re-post with the desire for highest quality, or wish to save it permanently.
If you are using a file sharing service:
Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box.com appear to leave your image intact (at least at the point when you finally download, the preview may be lower quality inside the app). AirDrop on an iPhone also preserves the original. So your files are safe / untouched, and the main consideration is the expected subsequent use (ie, will these go from the file sharing service to social media?)
If you are sharing via social media:
The general answer is you should use sRGB. However, you may be able to use wider gamut colorspaces if you can confirm they are supported. I would strongly recommend you test that (a) wide gamut colorspaces look ok on their websites / apps and (b) that the image still shows the same embedded profile (download it from the site and open it in Photoshop). Here's a quick rundown of testing I've done (current as of April 2021)
Instagram:
Facebook:
Bottom line: It is best to upload all images to social media in the sRGB colorspace with "ultimate" quality (they are going to recompress anyway and you'll see best results starting from a higher quality upload).
* When a website strips an embedded sRGB profile, it will often be properly interpreted as sRGB. But that is not always the case for all browsers. FireFox users may have problems unless they update color settings. See the browser color management tutorial for more details.
Browser color management
See this tutorial to learn how to test for and fix any color management issues with your own browser, as well as gain a better understanding of the impact of untagged images. Despite Web Sharp Pro helping to ensure that you export in sRGB with an embedded profile, most social media will strip this profile and that can cause an unwanted change in saturation with certain browser and monitor combinations. There's not much you can do about this aside from using sRGB for social media, but it's good to be aware.
Do your own testing:
Even if I've covered the tools you use above, I recommend you do your own testing for the reasons I stated above (and be sure to test your browser first to confirm it is showing accurate color). The best way to test is to upload your image and then view / download it from the service to confirm that it is either identical or changed within limits you consider acceptable. Here are key items to check:
The future of the web:
As good as things look now, they could be much better. Ideally we'd have wide gamut colorspace support across social media, HDR (wider dynamic range displays), as well as increased support for 16-bit images to avoid banding in certain edge cases. There are two main barriers to progress. One is the ultimate cost and speed impacts of sending higher quality images over the internet (embedded profiles add up, and 16-bits could really add up). I think the exponential growth curve of technology will solve that soon enough. The other is the glacial pace at which consensus is reached for broad support and adoption of standards across most web browsers. Photoshop already supports the excellent JPEG 2000 standard, which would give us an answer to all of this. But sadly, it has very little browser support and newer standards are going to be where the action is. "webP" is gaining traction, but is 8-bit only. The most likely candidates are JPEG-XL (aka JXL) and AVIF. There are arguments in favor of both, but AVIF seems promising simply because >60% of web browsers already support it vs 0% for JXL. And WebKit (the technology behind Safari) has support in test, which would substantially close the remaining gap to broad support. Neither is supported yet by Photoshop natively, but plugins or future updates to Photoshop could address that. Either way, I think we are stuck with 8-bit JPGs and small gamut social media for some years to come (even once browser support large bit-depths and new image formats). But this may change sooner than we think. So my advice is to prepare for the future and keep your original layered master files in a wide gamut space such as AdobeRGB so that you can take advantage of it when the time comes.
One particularly exciting possibility for the future is support for viewing HDR images on supporting monitors (the latest Apple XDR displays look amazing with HDR content). I suspect support for this format will grow significantly in the coming years.
Uploading workflows for social media or phone
Currently, there aren't available APIs to share Photoshop images directly with social media platforms. In many cases, uploading is a simple matter of dragging and dropping or pointing to the images on your computer, but you may be looking for better ways to get images on your mobile device or share on Instagram (which does not natively support desktop uploads). So this section is meant to provide some suggestions on workflows you might wish to adopt.
I don't know why, but Instagram does not support uploads from a computer. However, you can use 3rd party apps or simply force your website to show the mobile version of Instagram's website. See Hootsuite's article for more information on various options.
There are several ways to get images from your computer onto your phone:
Limiting file size
Occasionally, I get requests to limit the file to a specific size. You can do that with Web Sharp Pro by setting the quality dropdown to "custom: save JPG for the web". This lets you interactively see the expected file size at various quality levels. However, I recommend you use a different approach.
Outputting with a maximum file size means the quality is now variable and uncontrolled. You can easily end up with artifacts and other quality issues if you don't review the results when specifying file size instead of quality. File size is largest for more detailed images (due to the way compression works), which means your most detailed images are most likely to suffer low quality with this approach.
Instead, I recommend:
You may also use a hybrid approach where you batch export with normal settings, and then use one of the approaches above to handle the few files which exceed your desired limit.
More demos
The Web Sharpen panel was originally created as a stand-alone script. While the interface has changed and the capabilities have expanded, the following videos are still great resources to learn more how to make the most of it. Settings for sharpening and grain have the same impact now in the panel as they did in the script.
Overview and comparison to other methods of sharpening
Adding grain for a dreamy, nostalgic feel
Crop Overlays
Note: As of v5.2, Web Sharp Pro users can use a combination of Quick Exports and Saved Settings to accomplish nearly anything the crop overlays offer. The Quick Exports are simpler to use and generally recommended. The Crop Overlays still offer a few unique advantages including: the ability to slice the image into rows & columns, the ability to add a visual overlay (which is not part of the image, such as safe zones to guide cropping), as well as compatibility with existing crop overlays you may have created with older versions of the panel.
Both the free and Pro panels come with a set of default overlay templates which you may use, edit, or replace with your own. You may also add your own overlays to the master template using the instructions below.
The "Crop Overlay" button is primarily used to import crop overlays from the master template to your image (it has additional capabilities outlined below). The overlays allow you to interactively pick the perfect crop, as well as automatically set the output dimensions for specific uses (such as uploading a landscape image to Instagram).
Importing overlays into your image:
Note: If you have used anything other than 0% for "dim cropped areas" setting, the cropping overlay group will include a sub-group which helps make it easier to visualize the crop. Do not edit that group or its contents.
Additional capabilities: If you click "Crop Overlay" when you have existing overlays, you will be presented with the following options:
See the details below on general settings which affect crop overlay behavior, appearance, and the master template (Settings / Crop Overlays).
Overlay Editor ***
The overlay editor is a Pro-only feature which allows you to easily create new overlay templates. To access the overlay editor, open your master template file by <ctrl/cmd>-clicking the "Crop Overlay" button or by going to Settings / Crop Overlays / Edit Template. If you are using the free panel, you can still use the same sequence to open the template to edit manually (see instructions below for manually editing overlays).
When the template file is open, the panel interface will update to show the following buttons:
If you wish to permanently delete a template, just delete that layer. But if you wish to simply stop importing (without deleting it forever), you may make it hidden.
When you are done editing the template file, just close it (and be sure to save changes).
Note: The Adobe CC Installer deletes all panel-specific data if you uninstall a panel. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you back up any custom templates you create. See the section below on backing up.
The template editor has both "basic" and "advanced" options.
The "basic" options include:
The "advanced" options include all the above, plus several additional features.
Safe width/height: This adds an optional layer to help visualize the safe areas of an image which may be covered or cropped in some use (for example, landscape images on Instagram are shown with a square crop in the grid view, and it may be helpful to know exactly what may not be shown at all times). This extra layer has no effect on output and is just meant to aid in resizing and positioning the crop as needed for a given image.
The rows / columns section allows you to split the final output, such as to make Instagram sliders. The splitting is done when the image is saved (if you are leaving images open, you won't see the split until clicking "Save" in the panel).
Note when working with very large images: The ideal grain "size" are affected by the output size. For example, a single 1080p image may ideally use grain size 25, while the same grain appearance for 10 columns that are 1080p each would be just 5. As a general rule, larger images should use smaller grain size (because this is how Adobe ACR applies grain, it is dependent on the image size). To a lesser degree, you may also wish to increase the amount of sharpening when outputting larger images.
The Fill section includes nearly the same options as seen for quick exports in the main settings. A few things to note:
The rotate and override sections include:
The simplest way to create new templates is by using the quick export template editor in the Pro panel, but you may also create and revise your own templates manually with the free panel. And even if you are using the Pro panel, you may wish to revise an existing template (either in the master template or to customize how it is used after importing it into a specific image). The video above on the basic interface for the ProPro editor also discusses the key principles for editing your own templates.
If you wish to change an existing template and are using Web Sharp Pro v5.1 or later, you may click on the template in layers (it must be active) and then click the button in the panel to create an overlay. It will populate with the values from the selected template and show a button which allows you to replace it (or you can add a new overlay instead). So this allows a simple way to update settings or create variations of a given template.
You can also edit the overlay templates manually. A few general concepts to know about how the master templates work:
One-off Overlays ***
There may be times when you wish to simply create an overlay for just the current image and do not wish to add it to the master template. In this case, you may create an instance of an overlay right in one of your source images. Just <shift>-click "Crop Overlays" (you will also be prompted with this choice if you click "Crop Overlays" and there are already overlays in the image). This will invoke the same template editor, but you will be creating a one-off template in the current image (not adding it to the master template).
Generic sharpening / grain masks ***
If you need to customize the application of sharpening/grain through layer masks, you can simply use the option to leave an image open and then customize its mask. However, you may also wish to avoid repeat creation of masks when working with multiple overlays in the same image or to save the mask with your original image for later use. The generic mask options under Settings / Crop Overlay allow you to do just that.
When the generic mask option is enabled and you import overlays or create a new one-off, you will see an extra layer labeled something like {sharpening mask}. It will be filled with white pixels by default (though you can change this in Settings to black or to protect the sky from sharpening) and the layer will have an orange label in the layers panel. This represents the sharpening or grain mask. Just paint white or black as you would normally. Then when exporting the image, this will be used to mask sharpening and grain for all your overlays. This works regardless of cropping, output size, or other settings. And these masks are used for all output of the image (including when the overlays are turned off or skipped by <shift>-clicking "Sharp").
To help visualize the masking, this layer is set by default to multiply blending mode at reduced opacity. Areas you mask out by painting black will be darkened, and the brighter areas will thus be where more sharpening and grain is applied. When the sharpening is run, these layers will always be used if available. You do not need to make them visible, and you are free to change the layer blend mode or opacity if that makes it easier for you to visualize (blend mode and opacity in the generic mask will be ignored and this layer will be used with the pixels exactly as they look in the layer thumbnail).
Troubleshooting Issues
If you run into any problems or warning messages, here are some tips... Be sure to update if you aren't on the latest version of Web Sharp Pro.
Warning: The crop dimensions are inconsistent with the final dimensions...
This message is shown when using a cropping overlay who's aspect ratio does not match the output ratio. Common reasons for this and solutions include:
Note that the panel is designed so that the image is always resized proportionally. So even if there is a mistake here, it will not cause stretching. Instead, it will cause the final crop to be different (even if only slightly) from the preview.
Warning: Crop extends beyond the edge of the image
This warning is shown when any portion of the crop overlay is beyond the edge of the image canvas, even if by 1 pixel. Check that the crop overlay is properly aligned when resizing or moving at the edges of the document. Photoshop's snapping feature may sometimes be off by a pixel or two when moving while zoomed out, so be sure to zoom in and inspect closely.
You should also check that the template does not have any stray pixels outside your intended cropping rectangle, such as parts of guides, text or other information you may have put into the overlay template.
I cannot see the panel:
Look under the Plugins menu at the top of Photoshop and click to open the panel. If it is not listed in the plugins menu, then it either has not been installed or has been disabled. If disabled, go to Plugins / Manage Plugins in Photoshop to find the plugin and click the "Enable" button.
Updating & Uninstalling
How to update or uninstall the Web Sharp or Web Sharp Pro UXP panels:
Please see this page to update or uninstall any UXP panel.
Warning: If uninstall a UXP panel, the Creative Cloud app will also delete all internal data saved with that app. This includes any customization you have made to the templates. I recommend backing up your templates before uninstalling. In the Pro panel, go to Settings / Crop Overlay / Export template for the overlay templates and then go to Settings / Main / Edit quick export sizes / Export to back up any customization of the dropdown quick exports. If you are using the free panel, you won't have these options. Just go to Settings / Crop Overlay / Edit Template to open the template and then "save as" to create a backup in another folder (the free panel does not offer customization of the dropdown, so there is nothing to do there).
To uninstall the free Web Sharp script (this is the version that shows under the Filter menu and is not a panel):
Uninstalling the script is simply a matter of removing it from the scripts folder for your version of Photoshop. You're looking for a single file with a name similar to Web Sharpen (Benz)-v1-2-1.jsx.
On MacOS: go to Applications/Adobe Photoshop ####/Presets/Scripts.
On Windows: go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop ####\Presets\Scripts
Note: You may have put the script in a subfolder of the Scripts folder, which is also a valid location for Photoshop to load.
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