Deblur?

[steve.ledger]

I could see a use for it. I often have clients supply me with photos that aren't very good .

If any photo is blurred to such a degree where Xara's tools cannot restore clarity to an acceptable level for web or print, then (my view is that) they are simply unusable and ought to be rejected.
I know some clients watch too much CSI and think we can 'Enhance-enhance' - but it's pure fiction

[fuss]

Who said I was talking about clients? I'm not a photographer or graphic designer. I use Xara for my own purposes. Or are non-professionals not allowed to use Xara or have their own needs and purposes for using it?

[steve.ledger]

Sorry, fuss - you posted while I was posting.

I was responding to Frances

[Egg Bramhill]

I'm not convinced by this image enhancement software either. As an experiment I took an image of a meercat off the web, added a blur in Xara, saved it, ran it through DeBlur and the image was not greatly better than if I applied a 100% sharpen to the original blurred image within Xara.

[AndFarr]

Good one Egg, case closed !

[tovokas]

It would seem the type of blurring this software compensates for is motion blur, not a gaussian style general blur, so I don't think it's surprising this test wouldn't improve things much. I'm not at my production computer, so I can't test it myself to see if things are different with different style blurs.

Obviously, this is a tricky thing to pull off: Adobe demoed something similar in 2011 that has yet to find it's way into Photoshop. I agree the 'CSI' style fixing shown on the site is not particularly useful for most of us. But if I had something that could fix slight blurriness caused by hand shake when taking photos with slower shutter speeds in less than ideal light, without the artifacts associated with unsharp mask, well that would be beyond awesome.

[gwpriester]

@ fuss - All I am saying is you are looking to a product, albeit what appears an excellent product, to compensate for really bad photography. And that to me is compounding a problem, not solving it.

One of the great things about Xara products is they are good sets of tools for users of all levels. And most Xara product users are not professional designers. I would guess the majority are non-professional users. And there is something for everybody.

If you need good photography, and are not a photographer, then there is an abundance of inexpensive stock photography and graphics you can use.

[fuss]

This is just silly. What does stock photography have to do with improving my DIY headshot? I like the tool. For my purposes, it's useful, it has more controls, and I'm very pleased with the results. It's really only the user's opinion that matters.

At any rate, I can see that Xara does not have a feature that can achieve the same results as SmartDeblur so my original question is answered.

[Egg Bramhill]

I've no axe to grind re this software and perhaps a deliberate blurred photo doesn't do the software justice. So let's try a real world experiment. I attach a really crap photo a friends grandaughter posted on FaceBook. Show me an improvement matching their screenshots.

[stygg2003]

Point well made sledger with the vid. Those famous words you hear in all TV dramas, Enhance, zoom If only it was true in the real world to the degree they depict in these shows.

Stygg