Beyond Repair? Really bad lens blur

[Bettyboo]

Hi,

As a newbie I am taking opportunities to practice different types of photography by volunteering for local charities, which also helps them out.

I did a shot for a local charity Tuesday evening, something which I had never done before. Most of it went OK and am fairy happy with them. Right at the end, when I thought they had finished, the CEO of the charity asked me to do a 'quick' shot of the Team and the Mayor, which I obviously wanted to do to help. BUT because of the lenses and flash I had, I had done the whole things without a flash (mine wasn't strong or quick enough to be of much use) and of course used a tripod.

Long story cut short, I had collapsed the tripod and put everything away and was in quite some pain (the excuse coming up ) as I am waiting for knee surgery and had been on my feet from 0800hrs in the morning doing a shoot for my course. SO when she asked me to do this and they all just assembled, knowing that all the guests were waiting for them for the reception, I just grabbed the camera out of the bag and made a couple of images with all the same settings, but no tripod.

The attached is the product of that mistake! I am so disappointed and feel terrible that these (I took two both the same problem) won't be any good for them, as they had worked so hard to put this event together. They know I am student, but even so, I wondered if there was anything I could do to try and remove the terrible motion blur please?

I appreciate this is probably beyond repair and have learnt a valuable lesson, but just incase I thought I would ask.

Many thanks in advance.

Lynne

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Lynne,

It may be rescue-able, but I'd need to see it bigger.
Can you use the TinyPic method to upload a 1600px wide version please?
It also depends what size and use you see it being put to.

You say "bad lens blur"; what do you think the problem is;
a) camera shake?
b) subject movement?
c) mis-focused?

Also;
Was it shot RAW?
What were the camera settings (there's no EXIF data with this method of posting images)
Is this a crop or the full capture?

Cheers,

[Shadowman]

Hi Betty,

The sample image was so small that it's hard to tell if it can be salvaged. What editing software do you use?

[JPS]

Hi Betty,
Dave and John are correct the picture is quiet small and if you captured the picture in Raw then there maybe something you can do to improve things.

Here's my effort using the picture posted.






Original below

[Bettyboo]

Hi Gents, many thanks for your responses and advice.

I will have a go at uploading a 1600 version as you say Dave. (Many thanks for the tip of using this, another new thing I have learnt!).

John (Shadowman) I only have Elements 10 which I am VERY new at! I didn't do anything else to it.

I shot the images in jpeg as I thought I wouldn't need to do much to them, DOH! Not that I know what to do anyway, but I do usually shot in RAW so I can practice different things, although I haven't got further than straightening images at the moment.

Dave I very much think it was camera shake. I know I was very wobbly by that time of the evening and alarms bells should have started ringing that all the settings were not geared up for this kind of shot. The original image size is 34.5m, with 1/10 shutter speed, f/5 and ISO 320.

I had practiced without the flash and they liked the deep colour that cam out. I used florescent white balance and as I say the tripod, for all but these ones.

John (JPS) wow that looks great, did you do that in CS6? I am wondering if I should just get that while I have a student card and get discount from Adobe? I want to try and learn how to get the images as 'right' in camera as I can (not a very good start ) I am going to be making mistakes I know that and perhaps E10 isn't going to be 'man enough' to deal with them?

Thanks again everyone, really appreciate your advice and I hope the above information helps.

Lynne

[JPS]

Hi Betty,
my little attempt at tweaking your picture was only done in Elements 9. You are right though it's best to try and get it right when taking the picture, we all shouldn't hope PP can sort things out; sometime it cannot.
Regards.

[Shadowman]

Betty,

The last thing to consider is the output size the group expects. If it is a large photo find out what the viewing distance will be and this will help you determine if it is worth presenting.

[Andrew1]

Lynne, your shot may be improved somewhat with contrast lines and saturation but it will still be a bad photo. Nothing you want to put out there as a representation of what you should be able to do. Your rep may suffer and you'll always know you should have done better. I would suggest you not give them this one or even show it to them. Just tell them it was not satisfactory and request they let you know the next time they get together as a group for a re-shoot. Showing up properly prepared and getting a great photo will allow you to take a photo you can all be happy with and may get you invited back.

[Bettyboo]

Thanks Guys,

John (JPS) I have bought Scott Kelby's Elements 10 book and am going to work my way through that. Thanks for letting me know you used Elements, I will play with E10 a bit more on an original copy and see if I can do the same, although I hope I won't need to again

Thanks John (Shadowman) I think they just want them for their website. I did a shoot for them in June when they did a science event (it is charity that helps young adults find works and apprenticeships) and that went fine but I should have double checked with them to see if they wanted them in a printed form etc. Another lesson learnt!

Yes Andrew I agree nothing is going to make it work now and although I thought I had properly prepared, I suppose there will always be that moment when something happens or someone asks for something you are not prepared for, and sadly on Tuesday that was me. They are a lovely group of people and I have done work for them before and would like to keep supporting them, so hopefully this won't make a major difference to that, but I take your point and I although I am going to make mistakes, probably a lot of them, I don't want them 'out there' so to speak. Thanks for your comments, your honesty is appreciated.

Thanks again chaps, take care.

Lynne

[ggt]

One technique I've found that can *help* define the edges a bit is to use the filters. I use the frosted glass filter with the lowest levels of everything, then the plastic wrap filter with the greatest detail, lowest highlight and mid-smoothness --I do this over and over 4 or 5 times. Sometimes, I use the "poster edges" filter first with the greatest posterization and loweest levels of everything else and then the "accented edges" fiter half way thru.

It seems to clean things up a bit without distorting the picture. Then play with the lighting levels and luminosity. It's a bit of work, but I've been able to salvage some shots for scrapbook purposes.

Aw, heck, now I want to try it on your pic.

[ggt]

Ok, here you go --good enough for a newsletter or scrapbook --not much more.

It was fun. Hope you don't mind that I worked on it.

[Stagecoach]

Lynne, do not give up. There is a certain well known gentleman who visits here daily who has demonstrated some superb 'reclaims' and may be able to assist. Personally I believe it will be recoverable, certainly for web use.

As for the views on whether you give out a picture that you know is not 'the best you can do' or 'should have done' there is no simple answer. I recently was asked to do some function shots as a free favour (I'm a learning hobbyist) and there were a few where I had to ask myself the same question. Many do not recognise what you would consider a 'poor' image.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Lynne,

Any chance you can send me the full resolution original to have a look at? (it contains the most information for the repair).

[ggt]

So, I decided to do some photoshop studying tonite and ran across an article about a filter I haven't explored yet. It is "High Pass". I ran it thru the photo I already mangled and it helped a bit. I can see where it would be extremely useful for situations like this one.

Anyone ever worked with this filter?

[Bettyboo]

Hi Gretchen, thanks for having a go at the image as well, I will send them both versions, I appreciate your efforts. Also thanks for the information regarding the filters, I have never heard of any of them, but will certainly have a look and see what I have on E10 or have a play on CS6 when I am at college (mature student but a teenager at heart!).

Hi Grahame, thanks for your comments and you are right there is no right answer about giving people images you are not happy with. I would imagine most photographers are perfectionists and what we (not me obviously!) would consider a poor image, others might not, although in this case I think I have turned camera shake into an art form But I did give them everything and had a wonderful email back today thanking me and that one of the images is being used in the local paper, so I am pleased the others were OK and I have learnt a massive amount from this exercise.

Hi Colin, I will have a go at attaching it, but if I can't I will try to message you with it. (it seems to have attached OK, but let me know if you would like it in a different way).

Thanks again everyone who has responded with support and advice, I am going to have a go at doing some more indoor images at the end of the week and see how that goes.

Lynne

[Colin Southern]

Hi Lynne,

Are you able to confirm that that's the original image? At 1599 x 1064 it's considerably smaller than I anticipated from a D700 - so I'm guessing that you either had the camera set to produce a smaller file, or the image has been down-sampled in post processing - just need to know which.

[ggt]

Lynne, there are tons of ways to sharpen an image. I think the technique I used was the best for a picture with a lot of faces. I went thru all my articles and the tutorial here on CandC last night because I became intrigued after I read about the "high pass" filter.

Sharpening seems to be a skill all in it's own. I ordered the book recommended on the tutorial. I'm excited that I may be able to salvage some old family pictures.

[Bettyboo]

Hi Colin,

I have did take them in jpeg, but I thought it was on 'fine' might not have been though! I use ViewNX2 to get the images from the camera onto the Mac, not sure if this does something to them?

I have looked at the metdata again and it says that the image is '4254x2832' and 3.31mb, so what am I doing wrong to make it smaller when I uploaded it the second time please? Perhaps the Tinypic programme is making them smaller.

I will try attaching it again and see if the same thing happens.

Many thanks for your patience and assistance.

Lynne

[Bettyboo]

Hi Gretchen, I am having knee surgery in a couple of weeks and after the initial day or two when it is probably going to hurt (and possibly Chrismast Day ), I fully intend to spend the rest of the time I am off work going through as many of the CiC tutorials I can and keep practicing, even if it probably going to mean just loads of picture of my cat and inside of my house!

Thanks again for your assistance and good luck with your old family pictures, that sounds like a wonderful opportunity to save them for the future.

Best wishes, Lynne

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

I have did take them in jpeg, but I thought it was on 'fine' might not have been though! I use ViewNX2 to get the images from the camera onto the Mac, not sure if this does something to them?

I have looked at the metdata again and it says that the image is '4254x2832' and 3.31mb, so what am I doing wrong to make it smaller when I uploaded it the second time please? Perhaps the Tinypic programme is making them smaller.

I will try attaching it again and see if the same thing happens.

Many thanks for your patience and assistance.

Lynne

Hi Lynne,

Nope - still down-sampled I'm afraid.

Not sure what's going on to be honest - I didn't think TinyPic down-sampled - but would you like to just eMail it to me? (perhaps after double-checking that it is full resolution?).