Not all of us are great photographers, and sometimes mistakes like blurred images happen. It’s the nature of the game. But when the blur or shake affects a really good once in a lifetime shot, it can be really annoying.
Smart Deblur is a commercial software program which promises to help you remove the blurred image syndrome from your life forever. We’re not told how the program actually works, but in use, you set up a set of parameters (or just select a default setting if you’re lazy) and push the button. Depending on the size of the image and how powerful your computer is, it will then take around 15 seconds to 3 minutes for the program to do its magic.
The gallery on the site shows some pretty impressive results, and our own tests using the trial version of the program also showed that it definitely can improve the appearance of an image, although it’s clear that there are some photos which are so out of focus that it’s almost impossible. But we’re still impressed.
Our only issue with the software is the price really. At just under $50 (£30), it seems a little excessive for a single purpose utility, no matter how effective (especially when things like the free Gimp Refocus-It exist). Anyhoo, it’s still probably worth downloading and playing with the free trial version if you have a need for something like this (watermarked results), and who knows it may do the trick for you.