Software to improve focus of photo images

[Davidk]

I've got a range of photo software, but none of them seem capable of improving the "focus" of images that post exposure seem to be blurred or have moved slightly when the shutter clicked. An example here; new camera, tourist location, one time opportunity for a picture, and it's turned out slightly blurred. I'd like to clean it up - sharpen the focus, remove the blur. Any suggestions about easily used software that can do this????

[TimW]

There's only so much you can do with an out of focus image & virtually nothing can be done to the lady in white blouse that turned her face at the time of the exposure. That being said, this is what I did . . .
First I applied Unsharp mask with settings of Radius 0.60, Strength of 300, and clipping 0.
Second I used HiPass Sharpen with the following settings - Radius 46, Strength 20 & soft light. Soft light because it hid the grainy look somewhat.

Play with the numbers to see what they do. For me HiPass Sharpen worked better as a second step.

[JoeB]

TimW likely gave you the best advice for fixing the image as best as it can be fixed. Looking at the original I would think that the problem originated when the image was taken. It seems as if it was taken with a very low shutter speed which was likely automatically chosen by the camera to compensate for a very low ambient light situation. I suspect also a wide aperture was auto chosen to also help compensate. The first would cause any slight movement - of the camera or the people - to blur, and the second would result in very short sharp focal distance.

[Davidk]

Thanks guys.
The camera is a canon sx280HS compact: a neat unit especially handy for holidays. I got tired of lugging my digital SLR with extra lenses et al around. Ordinarily I set cameras for Av, F8, auto and let the gizmos do their thing after composition. The holiday this was taken on was 5+ years ago but I'm only now getting to do the 'I was there memory package'. At the time I'd had the camera about 6 months. Initially, the ISO was default (probably 100), but since that time I set it to 800 to try and reduce this sort of thing. And it wasn't really low light, but indoors and the sort of light level you get in a public room in late afternoon.

If it's really low light, I find that running the Fnumber down to about 4.5, compose it using the zoom to get closer/focus with a half shutter pressure gives a much better result than using the flash - as long as the exposure time is less than 20sec, and of course as long as there isn't any movement of the camera or the subject.
It's the movement that is the issue in this shot, and there simply wasn't time to check it let alone do a re-take at the time.

So, which software packages are you suggesting???

[ehume]

Thanks guys.
The camera is a canon sx280HS compact: a neat unit especially handy for holidays. I got tired of lugging my digital SLR with extra lenses et al around. Ordinarily I set cameras for Av, F8, auto and let the gizmos do their thing after composition. The holiday this was taken on was 5+ years ago but I'm only now getting to do the 'I was there memory package'. At the time I'd had the camera about 6 months. Initially, the ISO was default (probably 100), but since that time I set it to 800 to try and reduce this sort of thing. And it wasn't really low light, but indoors and the sort of light level you get in a public room in late afternoon.

If it's really low light, I find that running the Fnumber down to about 4.5, compose it using the zoom to get closer/focus with a half shutter pressure gives a much better result than using the flash - as long as the exposure time is less than 20sec, and of course as long as there isn't any movement of the camera or the subject.
It's the movement that is the issue in this shot, and there simply wasn't time to check it let alone do a re-take at the time.

So, which software packages are you suggesting???

As Best I know, there is no software fix for blurred pics. That is why I set my LX7 to f/1.4. F-numbers do make a difference in low light.

[Jean-Luc]

So, which software packages are you suggesting???

There is no software able to recreate lost information. Sharpness is lost and can be slightly improved but not completely recreated (see TimW suggestion).

To prevent such a situation, I don't shot once but two or three times (it costs nothing) and reassemble the best parts of each picture.

[LeviFiction]

Well, technically there are AI/ML sharpening software. But these are still in the beginning stages and they will suffer from all of the exact same problems that all AI/ML models face. There's only so much it can do, and if it guesses wrong the result won't be pretty.

Topaz Sharpening AI is actually pretty neat. It's the farthest thing from perfect, and it doesn't truly help the image all that much. Though, it does bring the table and glasses into sharp clear focus.

I had to bring the results into PSP and combine them in places. Like the man's face next to the woman in white was very creepy after the sharpening.

But yeah, if you ever need to fake detail, or invent something that doesn't actually exist. Then AI/ML programs are the way to go.

Anything more than this though, you'll have to get used to photo-manipulation using stock photos to Frankenstein a decent result, lots of heavy editing. Face replacements. Removing people entirely.