...to make a blurry picture less blurry?

I have Photoshop, if anyone can guide me through the steps. I attached two pictures: the blurry one I'd like to fix, and a crisp alternative version of the same picture (that might somehow help).

If there's nothing that can be done, can someone tell me how to remove the junk from the right-hand corner of my friend's home? I was thinking of copying & pasting from the left-hand corner, but I think it'd come out crooked and weird. Any tips on which tools and techniques to use would be appreciated.

Jen

For the blur it looks like a double problem, both motion blur and gausian blur. Try smart sharpen filter. One pass for each

For the garbage in the corner. Creative copping can help.

What did YOU try?

I tried looking for tutorials, but my Google searches weren't very helpful. I don't want to just crop the image; I want to learn techniques to do this on multiple photos and regular occasions.

Both blurred photographs and unwanted items in a picture are recurrent problems for me, hence the fact I asked for techniques, tools, and tutorials to use in the future.

Can someone point me in the right direction here?

Jen

Well there is only so much you can do with blurry pictures. Your picture was blurred and somewhat over saturated. So better photography is what would really help. More Lighting, a tripod, and careful focus should make the rest easy.

There is lot one can learn on this site and by posting problems, many times solutions can be found. With this picture I balanced the color by using levels and the white eyedropper (on the golf ball) the grey dropper on the grey paper on the wall. I copied the layer using overlay blending mode and ran the high pass filter on it. I also desaturated the photo. Results?

Not so good.

Jen,

You can use the clone tool to clone over the garbage in the corner.

I think it is important that you pick up on the buzz words like "sharpen", "clone" then go to your Photoshop manual to understand what these tools can do. It's not going to be easy, but if you curl up with a cup of tea and browse through your Photoshop manual, you will pick up the buzz words and get an overview of what Photoshop can do at least the basics like the clone tool.

There are tutorials here and all over the web (and help in the Adobe forums) to get you started. There are resources such as Lynca.com where, for $25, you can have access to every QuickTime tutorial for Photoshop 24/7 for a full month. Watching these movies is about the best way to learn what the Photoshop tools do.

I don't want to sound harsh and most folks here in RetouchPRO are more than willing to help, but I don't think many have the time or patience to "teach" you how to use Photoshop. Heck, most of us have been using the Photoshop for YEARS and still have room to learn and grow.

i dont use photoshop, but some of the steps i can give you are the same and some of the plugins would work just fine in photoshop as well.

i started with a high pass sharpen.
next, i used AIM's sharpen filter (a plugin)
next, i used AIM's 7 band sharpen (a plugin)
i then used a brightness/contrast adjustment layer, a color balance adjustment layer and a channel mixer adjustment layer. these were to balance and fix all the color issues.
copy merge to a new layer.
add a blank raster layer and cloned out the rough parts of the wall onto that layer.
ran digital camera noise removal (you can use Neat Image, a plugin-stand alone)
ran jpeg artifact removal
and finished with another contrast/brightness adjustment layer.

you could also try the Unshake or Focus Magic focus fixing programs, but i found it wasnt necessary here.

craig

Many great suggestions. Thought I'd try and see how it looks with my try.

ok, got to thinking about this again and wondered if Unshake could do any better. i had said i didnt think it would be necessary, but decided to see.

so, i'm changing my mind. give Unshake a shot. it did pretty good. most of the steps are the same here as stated above, except i ran Unshake first, didnt use a .jpg artifact remover and also did some hand work at the end to clean up some loose ends.

craig

Craig it looks better to me. Less Blur than before. However you shook it so much the color turned a tad blue.

thanks phil.

not seeing the blue. could be a monitor difference? i do know i was trying to get rid of a bit of a reddish tint from the first one, so i might have gone a bit more green or blue this time. still, like you said, less blur and the color balance seems better to me than before. i worked from scratch both times.

craig