Unsharp Mask Tool

About Unsharp Mask Tool

A slightly soft or out-of-focus image can often be improved noticeably by sharpening — a technique that boosts contrast right at edges, making the boundaries between light and dark areas crisper and more defined without actually adding new detail that wasn't captured.

This tool applies a standard 3×3 sharpening convolution kernel to every pixel, comparing each pixel to its immediate neighbors and amplifying local contrast differences. An adjustable strength slider blends between the original and fully sharpened result, letting you dial in exactly how aggressive the effect is.

Sharpening works by mathematically emphasizing edges — it can't recover detail that was never captured (like recovering focus from a genuinely blurry photo), but it can make existing detail appear crisper and more defined, which is often enough to noticeably improve a slightly soft image.

This is useful for crisping up photos that look slightly soft after resizing or compression, enhancing detail before printing or publishing an image, correcting minor focus softness, and general photo touch-up work.

How it works

1. Upload an image. Any common image format.
2. Adjust sharpening strength. From 0 (no effect) up to 2x (strong sharpening).
3. Download the sharpened result. Compare against the original to find the right amount.