Acclaim Software Focus Magic

After scanning a box full of old family kodachromes and b&w photos, I set to work to try and "restore" the these precious old heirlooms. Using the typical photo editing tools, color was corrected, contrast improved, dirt and scratches were removed. But blurry photos were only marginally improved at best using unsharp mask and other shapening tools. There had to be something better! Later, after reading an article about how images from satellites are sharpened using image processing software, I experimented with several programs that claimed to reduce image blur. The best of the bunch was Focus Magic by Acclaim Software. After using the demo on a few fuzzy images, I was suprised by what it recovered! Focus Magic greatly improved out of focus blur and linear motion blur as well (separate operation). Images that would otherwise get thrown away were salvaged. Badly blurred pictures only were marginally improved, though. Focus Magic works as a Photoshop plug-in or as stand-alone program. Bottom line: Great product for reducing minor to moderate amounts of blur and improving the punch of any photo without increasing noise or producing halos.

For the money, no other image restoration software fixes blurry photos like it.

Can take several minutes to process a single image.

Various freeware and shareware programs along with several consumer oriented photo editing software packages.

Emailed questions were promptly answered.