Sharpening in digiKam

The Sharpen tool in digiKam offers three sharpening methods: simple sharp, unsharp mask, and refocus. Each method has its advantages and drawbacks. The simple sharp technique uses a standard convolution matrix algorithm to improve image details. If you are curious about the nitty-gritty of the convolution matrix, the GIMP documentation provides a brief description of the algorithm. In fact, the simple sharp tool in digiKam is ported from the GIMP project. The main advantage of the simple sharp method is its simplicity. The Simple Sharp tool in digiKam has only one adjustable parameter called Sharpness which determines the strength of the applied sharpening filter. On the downside, the simple sharp method doesn’t handle image noise very well: it tends to introduce more noise in photos taken at lower ISO settings.