Motion blur, Median

[greenmorpher]

Hiya folks

In the Clarify & Vibrance, etc., discussion, I mentioned a Mac plug-in, which only operates on 32 bit and Rosetta, which helps get rid of, or minimize, undesirable motion blur, whether in the camera (not so often required these days) or in the subject (of course, there are times when you absolutely want motion blur and work to get it),

The plug-in is FocusMagic, it runs fine in PhotoLine v.15 on OS X.6.4, 32 bit, Rosetta. It also runs fine in conjunction with Canvas X on the same set-up. I just tested it on both, to make sure it worked as expected, and I am pleased to say that it did.

I had a number of portraits of I took of German war photographer, Wolf ..... (dammit, I can't remember his name and I can't quickly find my note of it, you'll find his work in the best German and other European magazines -- all black and white. I did mention him on this forum, I think, sometime early in the New Year, 2009), whom I met at an orphanage run by a friend of mine in East Timor (Timor-Leste). All were taken in lowish light, most were fine despite exposures in the 1/20 second range at around 80mm zoom, but one -- the best one, of course -- was not quite in focus and/or suffered from a little motion blur. (My principal camera is a Kodak P880 with a really, really beautiful Schneider 24-140mm (35mm equiv. lens) which has one major shortcoming -- no anti-shake.)

Just to satisfy myself that it was definitely shake or subject motion blur here, I tried sharpening the pciture by various conventional means. Marginally better, but not good enough.

So I tried FocusMagic on this picture. Blur was in two directions, as you can see from the dialog boxes. Ignore that bottom line in the boxes about nothing changing -- it did as you can see in the pictures. Presumably, this is a bug that comes with age -- the filter was first marketed in 2002/3.

At the end of the FocusMagic movement blur process, the image had a fair bit of extra noise and some edge effects -- I think I went a little over in the 30 degree correction. It needed noise reduction.

Now here's the joke, everyone! The best smoothing was "Median" at 3, 100%. I kid you not. I discovered that Canvas also offers Median but set at 100% (or so I deduce, Median at 3 in Canvas and Median at 3,100% in PL produce exactly the same result, virtually pixel by pixel). Maximum and Minimum aren't offered in Canvas unless they are under other names.

And where did I find "Median" in Canvas? In the "Noise" sub-menu. I suppose I saw it there once, but I haven't looked at that sub-menu for years because I bought Photocode's Noise Ninja and FixerLabs's Fixer suite five or six years ago, and ever since, I've used Noise Ninja to rescue all sorts of pix with excessive noise. However, this picture didn't respond well to the Ninja so I went to PL's and Canvas's own noise filters, and thus found Median in Canvas.

Notice the double line of light that ought to be a spot in the eye in the original. This is where you make a pixel count to enter the number in the of pixels in the correction dialog.

FocusMagic is at http://www.focusmagic.com/

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

Aargh! There was a fourth example there. So it only posts three and they are the wrong way around. I noticed that the other day, but forgot about it here.

Anyway, here's the fourth example.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or http://www.worsleypress.com

[OldRadioGuy]

The plug-in is FocusMagic, it runs fine in PhotoLine v.15 on OS X.6.4, 32 bit, Rosetta. It also runs fine in conjunction with Canvas X on the same set-up. I just tested it on both, to make sure it worked as expected, and I am pleased to say that it did.

The FocusMagic plug-in runs in 32-bit Windows applications, too. In Windows, FocusMagic also installs a stand-alone application that performs three additional functions (in addition to Focus and Fix Motion Blur): Despeckle, Defocus,
Increase Resolution. This stand-alone works on jpegs only. The plug-in works on any image format you can view in your photo editor.

Apparently development stopped some time ago, so the plug-in has not been upgraded to run as a 64-bit plug-in.

I downloaded a trial copy and attempted to install on my Windows 7 64-bit system. The installer froze, indicating the the installation had failed. However, checking the Program Files (x86) folder, I found the application, including the plug-in file, had been installed there. I copied the plug-to my plug-in folder, opened the 32-bit version of PhotoLine 16, and there was FocusMagic listed among the filters.

I tested Focus and Fix Motion in the 32-bit version of PhotoLine, and results were quite good. I am anxious to follow Geoff's suggestion for Median in the work flow. I haven't tested the FocusMagic stand-alone because I tend to work with RAW camera images, developing to PLD or PSD files, and only using jpegs as final product for web, etc.

If you decide to download the trial, select the images for your test judiciously because you're limited to only eight images before you have to buy.

Bob

[Hoogo]

There's a Windows-freeware called Image Analyzer that also contains a nice deconvolution filter, and lots of other interesting stuff. But it's windows only, and focus magic seems to work a little bit better for its purpose...

[greenmorpher]

You're right! Windows too, in fact, MORE Windows than Mac. Sorry, guys, burying myself in testing it out, I had forgotten that.

I've been in touch with the developers Acclaim Software http://www.acclaimsoftware.com.au and while they not saying anything out loud, it is clear that they are focusing (for want of a better word) on the other end of their business -- Cashbook, a small/medium business accounting software, a competitor to MYOB and Quicken. For some unaccountable (for want of a better word) reason, they've moved from their beautiful home place, New Zealand (did you see "Lord of the Rings"?), to apathetic Australia (I can say this with impunity since I am an Australian who has lived elsewhere and wishes he were there!).

It's a pity. FocusMagic's motion blur function seems to be unchallenged, so it screams to be upgraded to 64 bit rather than left languishing in 32 bit mode.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[greenmorpher]

A Photoshop user told me today that the latest Photoshop has movement correction incorporated. Presumably, that means it will be in the next Photoshop Elements too.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard
Publisher, Editor, Business Writer
The Worsley Press

FREE Bonus book offer. Get "How to make great ads for (sm)all business" FREE when you buy "Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes?" or "How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter". Amazon or www.worsleypress.com

[Koyaanis]

For another piece of programming for these features, you can check out this JAVA version. UnShake It runs slow as snails but does some things and has adjustments I've not seen in other more easy to use software. Something to keep in your bag of tricks. Or for the person that uses and enjoys interesting freeware.

[Hoogo]

A Photoshop user told me today that the latest Photoshop has movement correction incorporated.

Where can I find it?

[greenmorpher]

Sorry, Hoogo, I can't tell you. I didn't ask. I haven't looked at P'shop since v.5.5. I presume it would be in filters or tools or something. Maybe look in the manual/help for "deconvolution" or camera jitter or camera shake.

Cheers, Geoff