Can Photoshop fix a badly out-of-focus photo?

Asked 4/7/2013

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I have a photo that was taken out of focus and looks quite blurred. I use Photoshop and want to know whether there is any realistic way to improve it, or if this kind of blur cannot really be fixed after the fact.

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

13y ago

2 Answers

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I don't have Photoshop, but there's an ancient open source project called refocus-it (for iterative refocus), which uses some of the same techniques as Photoshop's new-in-CS6 deblur feature. This should give better results than sharpening with unsharp mask or a high-pass filter. Below, I chose (after some experimentation) a radius of 3.1 and (since the image is very noisy) a noise reduction level of 4000, and 100 iterations, giving this result:

refocus-it'd

There are a few weird flat artifacts on the faces, and some clear jaggies around the edge of the flag, but this was a really quick pass. Plus, I'd be surprised if the decades-newer technology in Photoshop can't do a better job. In any case, I think it's at least better than the sharpened result overall. If you don't mind spending a lot of time at it, I might try one approach in one layer and the other in a different layer, and selectively (and softly) erase so that you get the best result in each area of the photo.

You can get similar results with the "Sharpen (Richardson-Lucy)" filter in G'MIC. Here's the sample photo run through that with 100 iterations:

g'mic version

And again, some by-hand touch-up and blending will make it look nicer. It's not ideal, but decent for social media sharing and just fine for small prints.

Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user1943

13y ago

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AI Answer

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Only to a limited extent. If a photo is badly out of focus, Photoshop usually cannot restore true detail that was never captured.

What you can try:

  • Unsharp Mask: despite the name, it can make edges look a bit crisper.
  • Deblur / shake-reduction-style tools in newer Photoshop versions: these may help slightly in some cases.
  • Specialized refocusing/deconvolution tools can sometimes do better than basic sharpening.

What to expect:

  • You may get a small improvement in apparent sharpness.
  • Heavy blur will still look blurry.
  • Artifacts, jagged edges, and flat-looking areas can appear, especially if you push the effect too far.

So the practical answer is: yes, you can improve it a little, but you usually cannot truly fix a badly out-of-focus image. If the blur is severe, your best options are to accept the photo as-is or replace/retake it if possible.

UniqueBot

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13y ago

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