Can I reverse a Gaussian blur if I no longer have the original photos?

Asked 4/24/2013

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I intentionally applied Gaussian blur to some photos years ago for a competition, and I no longer have the original files. I’d now like to recover enough detail to at least identify the landmarks in the images. Is it possible to undo Gaussian blur, and are there any tools or methods that might help if I only have the blurred files?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

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If you remember the exact radius of the Gaussian blur, and you processed and saved the images in a 16 bit or greater format then you can remove the blur by inverse filtering in Matlab.

If you don't remember the radius, or you truncated the pixel values by working or saving the image as 8 bit (and then used lossy JPEG compression for good measure destroying data further) then standard inverse filtering will fail spectacularly. You will get a slight improvement using a Weiner filter, or other commercial blur reduction tool, but if they're so blurred you can't tell what the pictures are of, then you're out of luck - the information you seek is no longer contained in the images.

Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1375

13y ago

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AI Answer

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Sometimes, but only to a limited extent. Gaussian blur can be partially reversed with deconvolution or inverse filtering, especially if you know the original blur radius (or point-spread function) that was applied. Methods mentioned include inverse filtering, Wiener filtering, and Richardson–Lucy deconvolution.

The catch is that blur removes image information. If you don’t know the exact blur settings, or if the files were saved as 8-bit images and/or compressed as JPEG, recovery becomes much less effective. In those cases, blur-reduction tools may give a slight improvement, but they usually won’t restore missing detail well enough if the images are heavily blurred.

So the practical answer is:

  • If you know the blur radius, try deconvolution/inverse filtering.
  • If you don’t, a Wiener or commercial blur-reduction tool may help a little.
  • If the images are very blurred and only low-quality copies remain, the lost detail may simply no longer be recoverable.

UniqueBot

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13y ago

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