Photo Restoration - - repairing blurry photo's

jim1971 · #1 06-07-2005, 02:16 PM

hi all
was wondering if there is a way or a technique to use to make photos not so blurry..i have a couple like the 1 I posted below. like to make them a little more clearer.. thanks for any suggestions

Racc Iria · #2 06-07-2005, 06:00 PM

Hi Jim1971...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think you're going to have much luck with this particular photo. The detail I assume you want most, the faces, is so small in the image and isn't made up of very many pixels. No amount of sharpening is going to create desirable detail that wasn't there before.

I did a quick levels adjustment to bring out the midtones just a little. And then tried an Unsharp Mask filter until I got a "decent" result. Radius at .75 and Amount at 200%.

As you can see, the detail in the faces doesn't get much clearer. Perhaps if they were a little larger in the image.

Do you have any other images with them in closeup? Sharpening ones like that would probably have better results.

--Racc

jim1971 · #3 06-07-2005, 06:43 PM

yea i kinda figured as much. thanks for giving it a try anyways Racc

jim1971 · #4 06-07-2005, 06:45 PM

actually, the larger images (before i downsized to upload) are not much better, they are just as blurry as the 1 I posted

Gary Richardson · #5 06-08-2005, 01:04 AM

Hi Jim,

as Racc says, there's not usually much you can do with badly out of focus images.

Flora has a technique where she blurs even more the areas you're not interested in, and that makes the areas you are interested in seem sharper.

Sounds odd I know, but can be surprisingly effective in the right situation.
Could be worth trying with some of your images.

I'm afraid there's nothing that will give you the pin sharp in focus images you probably want.

jim1971 · #6 06-08-2005, 01:11 AM

thanks for the suggestion Gary. I dont think ill be able to achieve the sharpness & clarity that i will be looking for

Kraellin · #7 06-08-2005, 11:45 AM

you might also try doubling or even quadrupling the file size first, then sharpening and what the others said. this will give you a tiny bit more area for the sharpening to have its effect.

also, when you resized, did you keep the aspect ratio the same? the image looks a bit compressed horizontlly.

K.