Fuzzy Photo? Photoshop Could Soon Fix That
- Posted on October 13, 2011 at 5:40pm by
Liz Klimas
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What are these photos and what caused the blur? Shaky hand. Poor autofocus. Poor manual focus. All are excuses for a blurry photo that could eventually be eliminated if a new tool is introduced into Photoshop software.
Photoshop recently demonstrated at Adobe MAX 2011 a prototype deblurring tool that could be included in a future version of the program. Slashgear has more on how it works:
The system creates a motion trajectory of the camera for the time that the shutter was open, analyzing the exact movements involved. From that – and some other unspecified parameters loaded in the background, which we’re guessing will play a pretty significant role as well – the app can backtrack through the blurring and create a sharper, corrected copy.
And it wouldn’t even need the original file. It would work with any old photo from the Internet.
Watch as developers are awed by Photoshop’s new feature easily fixing the blurry photo:
The Daily Mail reported that the software creator declined to tell which, if any, version of Photoshop in which the feature would appear:
‘Adobe Max Sneaks are an opportunity to showcase some of the projects we’re working on,’ an Adobe spokesperson told Mail Online, ‘Some may or may not make it into future versions of our products.’
What is that green thing in the left photo? A caterpillar? Nope, deblur shows it's a pea pod. (Image via Daily Mail)
Even still, Daily Mail seems to think that the probability of it making it into a future version is probably, stating that last year a function to remove unwanted objects was demonstrated at Adobe Max Sneaks and made it into a marketed version.
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p51d007
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 5:28pmI don’t think the flower one is a good example. It wasn’t a BLURRY photo, it was an OUT OF FOCUS photo. BIG difference.
Report Post »nappy
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 5:26pm@11
Motion blur and camera shake are two different things. MB can be caused by camera shake. If your shutter speed is high enough you can actually have camera shake and no motion blur.
There are already stabilizers on the market. But if the motion blur is bad enough.. there still is no data to create details like the images shown here.
Sometimes I wish websites like this would consult experts prior to posting silliness like this. Not the first time.
Report Post »RightThinking1
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:49amAccording to the article: ‘The system creates a motion trajectory of the camera for the time that the shutter was open, analyzing the exact movements involved.’ That is quite different than correcting depth-of-field, out of focus problems.
Report Post »Ok…, given a shutter open time, one can imagine that there are ‘tracks’ of exposure that can be identified and the left/right up/down movement identified and corrected. The human brain can easily see such in a photograph ‘blurred’ by movement, i.e., it’s pretty easy to tell a blurred runner is moving left to right.
I assume most of you have seen the Lytro camera, which does some interesting stuff with depth of field.
Brittany-Imbriaarts
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:18amWow I cant wait to get this when I comes out. Adobe continues to amaze with each new version
Report Post »OllieK
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:18amI’ll believe it when I see it, in CS6 I’m guessing. What makes me particularly skeptical is that this is supposedly accomplished by some algorithm, but note the depth of focus of the image with the back of the table being slightly out of focus. Hard go believe this filter is so sophisticated as to be able to discriminate on what part of the out-of-focus image to sharpen and what part to sharpen less. If this is real, it is truly awesome.
Report Post »RRFlyer
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:38amGood point. If it were correcting for out of focus it should make the whole picture sharp
Report Post »N37BU6
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 8:46amAmazing.
Report Post »surelynot
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 7:48amI’m going to go ahead and say it… there is no way possible you can go from the first blurry flower picture to the second clear one without any additional information. Maybe you can somewhat enhance a streaked photo, but a straight up blurry one like that to a crips perfectly clear picture, no way. Not possible. That has to be a marketing photo. No algorithm in the world can take a patch of green pixels of relatively the same color and somehow add more data to include all kinds fine detail.
Report Post »collegegrad
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 8:29amExactly. It looks like they just added a blur effect and then reversed it.
Report Post »shirtsbyeric
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 9:15amThe first image is added Gaussian blur.
Report Post »Wolf
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 9:20amYup, looks like Gaussian blur to me as well.. They could at least have used a photo with bad DOF and showcased that. Still, if Adobe can develop a program that analyzes and corrects bad focus, it’d be great- for those who can afford it and need it.
Report Post »UlyssesP
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 9:59amYes, it looks like a mock up.
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:08amYou are correct that additional information is required.
Report Post »However, if I ask you to guess a number, you could indeed guess it, given enough time.
Software like this extrapolates information from the data available.
We know the focal range of the lens, so, it must be somewhere between those two limits.
From there, we can begin guessing and extrapolating. If we have a yellow pixel next to a green pixel, it is logical the green pixel may actually represent a blue pixel and a yellow pixel, but NOT a red pixel.
Once you get one AREA of an image “focused” by this sort of modified-brute-force extrapolation and guesswork, then, it becomes much easier to repeat the process in other portions of the image, using the data you extrapolated by “focusing” the initial portion. Additionally, by analyzing multiple portions simultaneously, you can determine the effect of your guessed/proposed alteration would have on multiple portions of the image simultaneously. The alteration that best fits multiple areas is the most likely. From there you can fine-tune it further.
It takes LOTS of computing cycles, but, the logic is not that difficult.
RE: guessing my number – you know I probably didn’t pick a negative, and it is probably in a range that I can comprehend (not 1.2032382372634347x 10^55239). From there, it is a matter of time. If you could guess 1 TRILLION times a second, you would eventually guess correctly.
11
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:26amThe algorithm is for fixing motion blur (i.e. camera shake). It calculates the path of the camera while the shutter was open and then fixes the image accordingly. It can do nothing for a shot that was simply taken out of focus. With a motion blur, the image detail is there, you just have to clean it up. With an image at the wrong focal length (out of focus) the detail information simply doesn’t exist.
The (obviously fake) sample image was provided by Daily Mail to sensationalize the story and I doubt that Adobe is really using it in their marketing. The Blaze is also keen to sensationalize stories which is why they’ve included the image as well.
Report Post »Ok-Sure
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 10:37amAgreed. The “blur” is extremely consistant over the entire photo. On un-focused shots that i have seen generally there are some parts more in focus some parts blurry and bright or dark. They are not usually foggy like the example. Could be cool if it does work.
Report Post »nappy
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 3:39pmI agree 100%. I am a Max 2011 user and I have been doing digital imagery since its inception. The data is NOT THERE to recreate wood grain or small details like this. It’s a fake image only to be used as an example.
Report Post »ProudTeaPartyMember
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 6:30amVery cool. As a photographer, priceless.
Report Post »stinkybisquit
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 6:07amHow will it work on things that have intentionally been blurred out, such as the license plate on a photo of my car, or someone‘s face I didn’t want to have identified?
Report Post »ortho40
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 9:27amWow! Great thought!
Report Post »orionreplay6607
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 5:58amGreat! But I sure hope Adobe puts the technology in their poor man’s Photoshop Elements too. I’m always amazed by how many “learn it yourself” full version Photoshop books are in bookstores, yet if you legally obtain Photoshop it hovers around $700. Who can afford that? Who’s reading and buying all those books?
Report Post »nappy
Posted on October 14, 2011 at 4:58pmJust use GIMP.. it’s free.
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