Image enhancement

I have a pretty general question: How does one go about enhancing images to increase their detail? What software (specific names please) is used to do this? I know about using Photoshop and similar programs to edit/doctor images, but I haven't really found anything about taking a blurry or low resolution image and making it more detailed. (like they do on tv, and yes I know that isn't realistic, but it describes the effect I'm interested in). Any information is appreciated. Thanks

Well not too sure but if you use the 'sharpen tool' (something like that) in Photoshop on a blurry spot it will become ok. But if you're talking about taking a really small thumbnail and being able to make poster sized with the same quality... you dreamin'.

More like sharpening vid caps and slightly blurred photographs. Surely there is something better than Photoshop and its "sharpening tool" out there.

Not really.

Sharpen is about the best you're going to get. The problem is, once you blur an image, you loose your original information.

For instance, if you have a picture of a blurry screen door, the screen will appear gray. There's no way for the program to know to turn the gray back into a mesh. It takes an intelegent mind to view an image and recognize what it should look like.

Final question then, how do police get enhancements of blurry, dark security camera images and such, as seen on the news?

Adjust brightness/contrast, apply sharpen.

TV resolution isn't all that great. And if you look closely, those images are usually still blurry.

I've never seen a cleaned up image on TV I couldn't do just as well myself in 2 minutes.

Here's about the most you can do with a blurry image: (this is my boss, laugh all you want)

original:


blurred


sharpened & contrasted:


Hey, I used img tags, but they're showing up as links! They must have modified the board.

LOL!!!! Where do you work man?

Ok, get ready for another laugh.

I work for the Western Washington Mental Hospital as a programmer. (Mumps/Cache language mostly) I don't have to deal with any patients here, but it's scary some of the stuff I hear goes on here that the media never gets wind of.

http://www.mathworks.co.uk/products...escription1.jsp

This is a serious piece of software designed for rescuing really far gone images. But you can't really beat Photoshop for home use. Just remember that you should break the image down into areas and take your time - there is no quick way to enhance image quality - it always takes ages.

Might also be worth looking up a plugin called Intellihance (not sure how you spell it) which offers colour balancing and noise reduction tools as well as limited artifact removal and deblur.

Thanks for the info icy_polecat, that's very helpful.

(Also, I love the signature)

That's a pretty cool program, Polecat. But any program where you have to send an email to get a quote for the price of the software must be far beyond most people's price range.

I agree but karsh44 wanted to know how orginisations like the police clean up images and they'll use something very similar