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The early days of picturetaking had me carefully setting up to take that spectacular photo, sending the film off to develop and patiently waiting for the prints come back from the photofinisher. Unexpectedly I experienced much disappointment when I looked through the returned pictures only to see my favorite subject as a blurred image. The cause may have been my sloppy focusing or me shaking the camera while using a slow shutter speed. No matter, the result was a missed opportunity.

When I review my large collection of photos – especially the older ones – I’m amazed how many aren’t “tack sharp”. Before the advent of autofocus cameras, we had to rely on manual focus techniques to keep the lens properly set. And before the advent of higher ISO film, we had to rely on stabilizing techniques to minimize the camera shake. In my younger days I must have been a photographer with sloppy habits and this explains why I have a bunch of blurry photos from back then.

A few weeks ago I learned of a software product that supposedly “fixed” blurred photos. After reading a couple of reviews of Topaz AI I decided to give it a try. In addition to sharpening images it can reduce image noise and can boost image resolution.

Topaz AI can be used by itself (standalone) or as a plug-in (helper) for Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. I have used it as a standalone but most often as a plug-in for Lightroom.

Here’s a quick look at how Topaz AI can make those blurry pictures go away.


 
Below is a photograph taken with film in the early 1970’s using a manual focus camera. You can see that the original image on the left is not quite in focus.
 


Here I’ve started Topaz AI to process the original image. This is the Topaz AI screen. On the left half of the split screen is the original image while the right half shows the improved image. On the far right is the control panel. By default the software analyzes the image and applies the changes that it believes will improve its appearance.


 

This is an enlargement of the Topaz AI control panel.

At the top is a thumbnail of the original image. Move the thumbnail rectangle to view different parts of the original image.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In this case Topaz has used its Autopilot settings to find a subject’s face in the original image, apply medium noise reduction and sharpen the subject in the image. You can override these settings if you do not care the resulting changes.
 
 
 
 
 
 

You can see that the buttons to Remove Noise, Sharpen and Recover Faces have already been activated (blue) but the Enhanced Resolution has not been activated (grey).

If you want to increase the resolution of the original image (Upscale), you can do so by selecting 1X, 2X, 3X, 4X or Max. You might use this if you’d like to make a poster size enlargement from your original image.

I did not increase the image resolution.

The dimensions of the resulting image are displayed below the enhance resolution choices.
 
 
 
 
Making changes to the settings are not permanent until the image is saved so you can make various adjustments until you achieve results that are favorable to you.


Here are portions of the original and “fixed” versions of the image.
 



original image – click to enlarge

image processed with Topaz AI (click to enlarge
Clearly you can see that Topaz AI has done a remarkable job in removing the cause of the bad focus in original image.
 



Next is a second image that suffered from focus blur caused by my rush to capture the bighorn sheep before it got away. The original was taken in May 2022 using a digital camera:
 

You can see that Topaz AI automatically applied the Remove Noise and Sharpen features to the original image. I did not need to use Enhance Resolution.


Below are portions of the original and improved images of the bighorn sheep.
 


original image (click to enlarge)

image processed with Topaz AI (click to enlarge)
 
Without any changes to the Topaz AI settings this software has produced an amazing image. It has saved another one of my photos from the “throwaway” pile.
 



 
I’m impressed Photo AI’s ability to fix the few dozen blurred images that I’ve thrown at it over the past few weeks. But what’s just as impressive is how easy this software is to use. So far it’s lived up to the AI that is part of its name.
 



 
For those of you who may be interested in this software, you can get a free trial version for either Mac or Windows personal computers. Visit Topaz Labs and look for the Photo AI package.

 
 
 

More Pixels Let You Get More Detail From Your Originals.

One of the first digital cameras that I owned was the Olympus C-2000Z. This was way back in the year 2000. With its 3X zoom lens it had a sensor able to record images 1600 x 1200 pixels – roughly 2.5 megapixels. I treasured this digital camera since it allowed me to bypass the all of the film, darkroom and scanning steps and go directly to the computer screen. While the consensus is that 35mm film is roughly equivalent to 20 megapixel resolution, the quality of printed images from the C-2000Z would not match those made with film but they were certainly adequate for computer display.

Of course we’ve witnessed so many amazing improvements in technology these past twenty years and many would argue that digital imaging quality has surpassed that of film.

Since then I’ve been lucky enough (or unlucky according to my wife) to own a succession of digital cameras. With each new model the sensor resolution among other features has steadily increased. For a few years I have been using the Sony A7 III camera. This is a full-frame, mirrorless device with a 24 megapixel sensor and has proven to deliver excellent images under a large variety of shooting conditions. This camera had about the equivalent image quality as my ancient 35mm film cameras about 6000 x 4000 pixels.

A few years ago I upgraded to a newer Sony A7R IV camera mostly for its advanced autofocus and high burst shooting capabilities. It also gave me another feature – a sensor that captures 9500 x 6300 pixels – an astounding 60 megapixels of imaging data.

Shortly thereafter on my next photo excursion by car, I headed out west with the A7R IV.

Below is a photograph that I took when I stopped to shoot a large cattle feed lot near Ogallala, NE. I was standing across the Interstate highway about 100 yards from the lot fence.



The size of the original image is 9504 x 6336 pixels but for this web article the original has been reduced to 600 x 400 pixels (or 1200 x 800 if you click to enlarge)
.



Below I have cut portions from the original image to show you the amount of detail this camera is capable of recording. These portions are not enlargements. They are part of the original 9500 x 6300 image that have been cropped to fit on the computer screen.



Here are the cattle that are standing next to fence adjacent to the highway. You can clearly see the detail of these animals.




Here you can see the silo with the logo towards the back of the feed lot.



Lastly is an even smaller potion of the original image that shows even more detail of the silo.



Hopefully you can see why high resolution equipment is useful when shooting subjects such as scenery or wildlife. Capturing so much detail enables you to crop portions of your original photograph to achieve a desired composition.


Written by: Arnie Lee


Tech Tip #1

07th November 2009

For the most part, we’ve stayed away from the “techie” stuff so far. We’re going to stray slightly to explain how more pixels can come in handy.

When Pixels Count

Although I was using a 400mm lens, I was unable to get any closer to this bald eagle. He was sitting on a small branch in a pine tree 200 feet away and 50 feet off the ground.

This photo shows the full frame. It has a resolution of 5600 x 3700 pixels.


To keep the eagle from remaining a speck on my print, I tightly cropped the image. This yields an 870 x 1300 pixel image. Had my original image had fewer pixels, the cropped image would have lost detail.