Help! How to fix blurry photos as much as possible in post-production

[blacksheep]

Hello...
I'm ashamed to say that I have screwed up with a group photo even though I received very useful tips and information on this forum. I'm sorry. I think I was very tensed.

So I have shot 16 people in an overcast day with D90 and a kit lens of 18-105mm (I shot at 24mm).
Regrettably at 1/200 second, F6.3, ISO100..

So the people in the front line, at the centre is rather okayish though it is definitely not great, but at the back and the people at the side is terribly blur.

I use Lightroom 4 for post-process.
Is there anyway to rescue these blur faces, to make them look a bit more acceptable?

I appreciate any guidance, thank you so much in advance!

[Steve S]

Hello...
I'm ashamed to say that I have screwed up with a group photo even though I received very useful tips and information on this forum. I'm sorry. I think I was very tensed.

So I have shot 16 people in an overcast day with D90 and a kit lens of 18-105mm (I shot at 24mm).
Regrettably at 1/200 second, F6.3, ISO100..

So the people in the front line, at the centre is rather okayish though it is definitely not great, but at the back and the people at the side is terribly blur.

I use Lightroom 4 for post-process.
Is there anyway to rescue these blur faces, to make them look a bit more acceptable?

I appreciate any guidance, thank you so much in advance!

It would help if you posed the photo, so others can see if it can be adjusted.

24mm and 1/200s should have been enough shutter speed. May not been enough depth of field at f/6.3 though.

[chauncey]

Unless you were less than 12 feet away, depth of field was not your problem with those settings.
Gotta be either missed focus or camera shake...not repairable in LR.

[blacksheep]

Thank you both. I am posting the photo here. The more you go to the left, the more blur it gets...
I did a little post-process out of misery but this is best I could achieve.

[blacksheep]

[Dave Humphries]

Find "Focus Magic" - if you have PS Elements or Photoshop CS/CC, it can be used in those, probably best on masked layers so you can fix the more distant, edge faces while leaving the currently sharper ones alone.

Or it works stand alone, but would affect whole image, which may be counter-productive unless you use something else (e.g. GIMP) to use on layers.

Sounds to me like a combination of insufficient DoF, non-ideal focus distance (e.g. on front row, not middle) and even 'kit lens' edge softness at that aperture.

EDIT having now seen photo:
Looks like a combination of insufficient DoF, non-ideal focus distance (e.g. on closest person in front row; not someone one third to one half way through the DoF) and focus field curvature, perhaps with a bit of 'kit lens' edge softness

The closer girl on right is fairly OK, whereas the front row girl on left is softer, but she's a bit further back, hence my comment about focus curvature at that wide an angle of view.

I am certain it could be made better still in PP - but do you have their feet?

Good luck,

[blacksheep]

Thank you Dave!
It seems like I need to undertake a very nasty post-production...

I'm not even sure if I took a best way to process this photo on Lightroom. Never tried to fix something so nasty like this....

Any tips to at least process this photo properly on LR??

[Shadowman]

Plus, it's possible there was movement within the group. You can see that a few of the members on the end are leaning inward.

[Richard Lundberg]

Detail slider to 100 and adjust parameters

[Glenn NK]

Mariko:


If I knew the people in the photo, I would recognize them immediately - so it isn't that bad. And, has anyone complained about the blurriness?

To be brutally honest, I'd be more concerned with the mixed background - lack of attention to backgrounds is probably the most common fault committed by photographers. It's a bit distracting with both the trees and the building. It seems that you could have moved the group to your left a bit and that would have kept the building out of the image.

John's comment about possible movement indicates a slow shutter speed.

I find that too many people are much too concerned with keeping the ISO down as low as possible because of a perceived concern about noise. I have a Canon 30D (eight year old technology) that I often shoot at 640 with no visible noise. The higher ISO helps achieve faster shutter speeds and smaller apertures; both useful when shooting groups.

Glenn

[dje]

Hi Mariko

From my rough calculations, it appears you probably shot this from a distance of about 5m in front of the group. At this distance, with a focal length of 24mm on a 1.5x crop camera, with aperture f/6.3 as you indicated, the DOF should extend from about 2.5 m to infinity. Therefore I can't see that DOF should be an issue with this shot. The comments Dave made about loss of focus on the edges could be a factor but I just have this feeling that there is something else - in particular, a faulty lens/camera combination.

I think I would be doing some tests to establish if there is a problem with the equipment. eg a controlled shot with no motion (eg brick wall, tripod mounted camera).

Because your posted image is quite small, it's not possible for us to play around with sharpening in LR/ACR. But you should perservere with this as a suitable sharpening process may improve this image.

Dave

[blacksheep]

Thank you all - I am nodding to every single comment so much - I really do think a combination of ISO and slow shutter speed.

For now, I really must find a best possible way to achieve rescuing those poor students in the photo.. I will post the original size here.. I hope it works?

[blacksheep]

Couldn't upload the original size here..but here it is, a bigger version!

[blacksheep]

[Colin Southern]

Mariko,

I can probably fix 80% of it for you, but I'll need the original full-resolution file. If you'd like me to look at it, drop me a private message and I'll send you an eMail address to send it to.

[blacksheep]

Thank you Colin, have sent you a PM.

[Mark von Kanel]

Colin please post the resulting image and tell us how you did it