Is it possible to fix out of focus shots?

Dealing with some talking head footage that is soft. I was wondering what the best method is to fix shots that are out of focus, other than the standard sharpening filters?

I came across this http://www.scribd.com/doc/53744536/41/How-to-Repair-Out-of-Focus-Shots but I'm unsure on how to seperate the luminance and color channels, would this be done in AE?

That is in research at Adobe right now, really. Saw a demo a while back. But for now I think it's in the same category as that plugin needed to de-reverb audio.


- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Advance to next/previous keyframes in a clip with Shift/Option-K !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

That is in Photoshop...but don't count on it in video as it is computationally intensive per frame:

[prodesigntools.com]

BTW...this is NOT for "out of focus" shots...this is for MOTION BLURRED shots (there is a difference). Adobe's new tech on this uses what's called the "blur kernel" to restore images.

"...the key element in the unblurring feature is the program?s intensive computation of a ?blur kernel? (or point spread function), a unique signature which describes the motion trajectory of the camera while the shutter was open during the creation of the flawed image? Then, once this path is determined, further computation applies it to the blurry picture to reverse and work back to what the photograph should have looked like originally ? in other words, to remove the blur and restore a sharp image."

I highly doubt this tech will fix focal f**kups

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

That is pretty amazing! Based on that description, I should think a reverberating audio signal could be viewed as blurring the sonic image and reversed in a related manner!

- Loren
Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Do a virtual Audio Mixdown to lighten playback load with Command-Option-R!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

You could try this from Topaz labs.

[www.topazlabs.com]

I don't think it can be applied to a video clip. Probably have to render out
a targa sequence or similar and apply it in Photoshop.
I could be wrong, some of their plugins can be used on video.
Edit: Photoshop, Aperture, iPhoto, Lightroom.

The examples are not showing befores that are way out of focus, just a little.
But the results are pretty good.

There is a demo version.

Topaz makes interesting products, but those will likely be very very slow if they need to do inter-frame computation-- Topaz discontinued its video Enhance product for just that reason-- plus the fact that it wouldn't work on ProRes footage. I think they do a lot of contract OEM work.

- Loren
Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Do a virtual Audio Mixdown to lighten playback load with Command-Option-R!

The FCP KeyGuide?: your power placemat.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

I'll download the demo tomorrow and check the time on several different frames.

I'm curious as I do still photography as a hobby and have been looking at the Topaz filters
for a while, just have not been ready to purchase yet.

Tried the DeJPEG filter before but it didn't seem to be that effective.
Could have been pilot error though on my part.