Hi. I'm trying to find out if it is even possible to fix some digital photos I took at my son's graduation. I used a digital camera and did not have it set up properly. Needless to say, I would really like to save this photos if possible. I just got PhotoShop 6.0, but I don't know how to use it yet. I'm new at digital photography (obviously), and since there are other graduation photos that are too fuzzy, I am willing to learn whatever I have to, or to buy different software. If these photos can't be fixed, I hope someone will just tell me so I can stop fussing over it. thanks

Jan G.

Well, nothing will ever make it perfect, but hopefully you'll get several helpful ideas here. There are many ways to approach this, here's mine:

1 Duplicate layer
2 Use High Pass filter (see attached)
3 Set High Pass layer blend mode to Hard Light
4 Duplicate HP layer twice more
5 Flatten and run Dust and Scratches to get rid of the white dots that form

Hi Jan,

if you're looking to get a sharp focussed picture from the photo you published, I'm afraid it's not going to happen. Some improvement is possible, but probably nothing that will make any real substantive difference.

I'll be happy to be proved wrong on this, but I don't think I will be unfortunately.

I played around with a few filters and this is about as good as I'm able to get it.

As this thread shows there is no substitute for focused photos. I had the same thing happen with my daughters graduation pics. I was having a different problem, the light looked good enough to me but the camera wanted more. When I turned the flash on they were too dark and off they were shaky. I could see it happening and didn't have a tripod with me to fix.

Before you give up hope and pitch them in the trash however there are some scrapbooking tips of what to do with them. Printing the photo and mounting under a sheet of vellum will give the layout a dreamy sort of feel. Also de-saturating, removing all but a little of the color and printing on inkjet vellum will also give and interesting effect. For a vintage look print on photo canvas this will disguise some of the focus issues within the texture.

Trying some of the watercolor or other filters in photo shop will also give you other ideas. The general idea is that what is important is the memory of the event and what you have is what you have.

I assume this was a recent event. If your son was able to keep his robe make him an appointment with a pro and send him for a portrait use this in conjunction with the snapshots and other memorabilia to complete the look.

Just for whoever is interested in some background knowledge about why out-of-focus pictures cannot be restored or otherwise "sharpened":

Whatever you want to take a picture of is some materia reflecting light. These light-rays are bundled in the camera to point to one single point in the camera (just like using a big lens to bundle sun-rays on some paper to make fire ;) If the lenses inside the camera are not adjusted properly, the picture gets out of focus, thus the light-rays do not just light one single point but several points at once and overlap each other. Consequence is a single line for example will be shown as a blurred line, but in addition the surrounding parts will also light the line itself. You can sure imagine the result: Details you need to see an image sharp are simply lost or faded.

Hope this helps to see the reason behind...

Patrick