Out of Focus - Can it be 'Fixed'?

AlanC wrote on 3/15/2004, 5:44 AM
I recently video'd a wedding for a friends daughter. Unfortunately I didn't realise until I came to edit that the first few minutes of the service are slightly out of focus. (It's the eyesight you know)

Is there a way of improving the sharpness of the bad footage or do I resort to the excuse that I deliberately shot it in soft focus?

Alan

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2004, 8:13 AM
There is no help for out of focus. Even NASA can't improve focus (which is why they sent a shuttle mission to the Hubble telescope a decade ago to correct the botched optics that were producing fuzzy pictures).
Cheesehole wrote on 3/15/2004, 8:26 AM
If you believe the people on CSI: Crime Scene Investigators you can fix it! :D
RichMacDonald wrote on 3/15/2004, 8:32 AM
There is no help for out of focus :-/ However, you can make some amends with sharpening, if done carefully. Do not use the sharpen filter as its a bludgeoning effect. Instead, try the convolution filter.

1) Add a convolution filter to the track. In the dropdown, there is a sharpen setting (exact text escapes me, and I don't have access to Vegas right now). Try that. You'll probably find it is too strong, in which case increase the value of the center cell. I tend to use 25 for a strong effect and 35 for a weak effect. You want to add "detail" without too much of that awful "glow" around all the edges.

2) If you need more control, duplicate your track, add the convolution filter to the top track, then adjust the opacity of the top track to blend it with the untouched track beneath it.

I'm afraid this is about the best you can do. And it might be jarring to switch to the focused clip later on. If worst comes to the worst, you might actually start your focused clip with a bit of blur and keyframe it away over a few seconds so its less noticeable.
AlanC wrote on 3/15/2004, 8:41 AM
Thanks Rich,

I wasn't expecting a Magic Wand but I thought that the forum and Vegas would provide at least a part solution.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigators - Eat Your Heart Out



roger_74 wrote on 3/15/2004, 8:51 AM
Maybe these guys can be lobbied into making a video version:
http://www.focusmagic.com/examplefocusing.htm
wcoxe1 wrote on 3/15/2004, 9:18 AM
With regard to, and thanks for the previous post:

Here you go: Focus Magis is currently a still image product. Lets contact them for a plug in for our favorite tool. NO, I mean Vegas!

Contact: Eric Schwerzel
Email: eric@focusmagic.com
AlanC wrote on 3/15/2004, 9:32 AM
Focus Magic

That really is MAGIC!

But is it cheaper than Viagra?
RichMacDonald wrote on 3/15/2004, 10:06 AM
At $45, Focus Magic looks like a great tool. I just checked out the demo and the stand-alone has no batch capability. However, you could use Photoshop batch mode with Focus Magic as a plugin (which I have not demoed). What does this mean? You could export your Vegas clip as a series of jpegs, run the tool on the files in batch mode, then reimport the results.
roger_74 wrote on 3/15/2004, 10:11 AM
The problem is, to get good results you have to tell the program which area is out of focus. The program would have to have keyframable masking or something similar.
johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2004, 11:27 AM
Wow! I am amazed by what I see on the web site.

It looks like some labor is involved to correctly identify what settings to use. Perhaps the same settings could be used for each image in the batch scenario outlined in previous posts. The one remaining question would be processing time. Some of the reviews indicated that it took several hours per image, albeit with images that are 10x the size of DV video. However, if this thing really works, and if your video is only 10-15 seconds, you might be able to get some great results.
AlanC wrote on 3/15/2004, 12:17 PM
Unfortunately the OF video is more like 10 to 15 minutes.

I'll try Rich's idea and if that doesn't work then I will probably resort to the "soft focus" excuse.

Thanks to everybody for the help and advice.

Alan
johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2004, 12:36 PM
I tried the "Focus Magic" demo (3.0 version). It is not entirely a failure, but I don't think it is "Magic" either. I tried it on about six different images that were out of focus, and made some improvement, but at the expense of a somewhat speckled appearance.

Compared to other image enhancement tools, such as Neat Image Noise Reduction -- which does work magic (reducing noise on digital still images), this one is pretty limited.
Cheesehole wrote on 3/15/2004, 2:54 PM
Wow Neat Image worked wonders on my cloud images! Cool software...
johnmeyer wrote on 3/15/2004, 3:25 PM
Wow Neat Image worked wonders on my cloud images! Cool software...

There are several amazing programs like this that can perform near miracles on your still pictures or video. I know some people that use this program on every single digital picture they own.
RalphM wrote on 3/15/2004, 5:32 PM
Alan, that's a fair amount of time affected by the problem, but is there any chance that you could composite the video with some childhood stills, old home videos, etc. to give sort of a flashback effect?

Also, if some of the problem footage is pre-ceremony, you could use the prelude music, room ambient noise, etc. as audio for a slide show of childhood through engagement type stills, home videos, the invitation, .....

Just a thought.
AlanC wrote on 3/16/2004, 3:06 AM
Ralph,

Thanks for the suggestions. That was part of the plan anyway but I must admit that I hadn't considered the possibility of 'losing' some of the OF stuff by using the cut aways.

Great idea.

Thanks to you all for the support.

Alan
AlanC wrote on 3/16/2004, 3:10 AM
In fact that has just planted another seed.

I could still use all/most of the OF footage but as PIP with the childhood stills, old home videos, etc.

It should be less noticeable by doing this.

Thanks again.