How much sharpening is too much?

If you see bright or dark outlines tracing the edges in your image — halos — you've gone too far. Back the strength down until they disappear. Values between 1 and 3 suit most photos.

Should I sharpen before or after resizing?

After. Downscaling softens an image, so sharpening last compensates for exactly that loss. Sharpening first then resizing throws away the detail you just enhanced.

Sharpen Image

Recover crispness in a soft photo. This applies an unsharp mask, which boosts local contrast along edges so detail reads more clearly.

Drop an image hereor click to browse — JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, TIFF or AVIF, up to 25MB

Your file is processed on our server and deleted the moment your download is ready — never stored, and cleared within the hour at the very latest.

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Why use this tool

Adjustable strength so you can stop before halos appear
Especially effective on images that were downscaled
Keeps the original dimensions and format
Free, unlimited, no sign-up

How it works

1Upload the photo you want to sharpen.
2Start with the default strength and increase it gradually.
3Press Apply and compare against the original.
4Download when you're happy with it.

Sharpen Image — frequently asked questions

Only partly. Sharpening increases contrast at edges that are already there — it cannot invent detail that the camera never captured. Slightly soft images improve a lot; badly out-of-focus or motion-blurred shots don't.

More effects tools

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