Need the Ultimate Expert in "deblurring and sharpening" to fix an out of focus photo!

[FireWire]

Hi guys, I know this is my second post after my introduction and I am already asking for help, but this was the main reason why I found this forum... so hopefully I can get some great help with this particular picture (I normally don't ask for help such as this, but I have spent a few hours trying to get this picture to look sharp and in focus... and I could not come up with anything).

I have tried countless settings using sharpen filters in Photoshop, along with many other 3rd party plugins... and nothing that I do seems to be able to improve it. Normally I do not get so hung up over a single editing job, but I have officially given up on this one... I probably don't know which tool(s) to use in order to improve it, so I'm turning it over to you now! So, that being said - thanks for your help in advance!

 

[theKeeper]

Re: Need the Ultimate Expert in "deblurring and sharpening" to fix an out of focus ph

Hi FireWire...

Sorry to say but this image is just too blurry to correct. The only thing that will help at all would be to scale it down by about 50% and apply Smart Sharpen a couple times. That will basically 'fool' your eyes into thinking the image has more definition than it really does. But you will not be able to rescale it up again and retain the same definition.

Sad, but true.

Have a good one.

Mark (aka theKeeper)...

 

[Steve]

Re: Need the Ultimate Expert in "deblurring and sharpening" to fix an out of focus ph

Like Mark said there's not much you can do with an out of focus image.
I did this in ACR (not CS5) raising the sharpening controls to ridiculous levels and reducing the noise created by the sharpening with the new noise reduction module.
Then a little Filter|Other|High Pass in PS.

 

[iDad]

Re: Need the Ultimate Expert in "deblurring and sharpening" to fix an out of focus ph

just messing aroundView attachment 2801

 

[FireWire]

Re: Need the Ultimate Expert in "deblurring and sharpening" to fix an out of focus ph

Thank you guys! Steve, I just learned something new as well!

Cheers.

P.S. iDad - thanks! Looks funky, haha.