Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I've been trying Focus Magic out today. After a bit of experimenting, I'm a believer. I was able to touch up some slightly misfocused or motion-blurred old Kodachrome scans from the 50s, and the difference is remarkable. But not only that. I've found that a small application of Focus Magic to digital camera pictures seems to sharpen them cleanly and recover a bit of detail. It appears to do this better than unsharp mask or in-camera sharpening. With less artifacting and less "fake digital" crispy-crunchy look. A big thank-you to Sonny Carter for getting me thinking in this direction. Picture Window Pro is my image editor, and it doesn't run Photoshop plug-ins. So I've been running the Focus Magic plug-in out of Irfanview. In Irfanview, the processing is applied to the entire image--no selection is possible. Which leads to my question: In Photoshop, can you apply the Focus Magic plug-in through a mask? The purpose would be to use it to sharpen the in-focus portion of the picture only, leaving the rest untouched. Or, to apply a small "blur width" to the subject, then reverse the mask and do a second pass to bring a slightly out-of-focus background into better focus. Is this possible in Photoshop, PS Elements, or other plug-in compatible programs? Thanks! --Peter