Sharpening technique with photoshop?

I have Photoshop Elements 7, and a Nikon D7000 SLR with kit lens (18-105mm) and a 50mm 1.8D. I know of 2 techniques for sharpening (Unsharp Mask and High Pass Filter > Overlay) but I'm having difficulties in obtaining sharp crisp images.

I often look on other photographer's websites for general inspiration and am envious of how their photos look. Their pictures seem so much sharper and have more detail almost.

I generally use the High Pass Filter set to anywhere between 3-8. I stay away from the Unsharp Mask because I'm unsure on the ideal settings to achieve the best results.

Is it my technique, or the fact that I mainly use the kit lens?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

I doubt that the lens has anything to do with it. You might have a bit of shake when taking your photos that shows up as a lack of sharpness but a test with a tripod will soon sort that out.

Take some test shots and play around with the sharpening tools. Pick out some area of the photo that has a lot of detail and use that area for experimenting. Go to extremes on the settings to see what the effect is and then back off until you have an image that looks good to you (have the preview enabled).

Just experiment until you get a feel of how the tools work.

Cameras - even the most expensive ones - don't come off the assembly line ready to take perfect photos. Most half-way decent cameras - and yours is more than half-way decent;-) - have settings accessible via the menu that include sharpening. Do some menu exploring. Look for "Adjustment" or something similar. You'll be surprised what you can find. Learn to use the P and M modes. Since digital images can be erased from the flashcard, take gazillions of photos and don't feel bad if most of them are truly ugly… Because they will be.

Also, ages ago I found myself sitting next to an outdoor photographer whose work I admired and I asked him about how to get the near-perfect photos he and other professionals exhibit. His answer helped me immensely: "If you take 100 photos, one or two of them will be 'acceptable'. Toss the rest." This morning I took 51 macro photos of a little spider I'd never seen before and, from giving them a quick look over, 1 or 2 of them might be keepers. Photos aren't your children. You don't have to love each of them equally. Learn to take a lot of photos and learn to send most of them to cyber Heaven and to keep only the cream of the crop.

If you have to tweak your images, you won't have to correct poor camera work. You'll just have to tweak to make what's "near perfect" closer to perfect.

btw, don't get stuck on "settings". Learn to eyeball the images. The Unsharp Mask should be set around 110 - sometimes less, sometimes more. Then set the Threshold. For object in your photos with small details set it from 0 to 1 or 2, then move the radius slider just until you see some change in the close up of the image in the preview window. For larger objects in photos, set the Threshold from 3 to 5 and the same rule applies: move the radius slider just until you see the smallest change in the closeup of the image. The more you use the Unsharp Mask, the better the feeling you'll have about how to use it. The rule: if you see a big change, you've sharpened too much. If the main focus of my photo has an eye, I usually move the preview to the eye area.