Sign up now for our Newsletter and get all the latest news about FixerLabs' products, updates and special offers.

Comparison between FocusFixer, SmartSharpen and USM applied to sharpen a simple image

In this example we have taken a very simple image - 2 square 1 pixel dots, separated by 1 pixel, to illustrate the effect the camera will have when this image is captured and then the way some of this can be rectified. All the images have rollovers to make comparison easy.

Image 1 shows the original image cropped and upsized 400% (to make it easier to see what is going on) compared with the resulting camera image (an accurate simulation of a Canon 10D). Image 2 compares the camera image with a USM sharpened version. Notice the noise that this introduces and USM is unable to make any significant improvement in image quality.

Image 3 repeats the comparison using FocusFixer to sharpen the image. A substantial improvement effectively restoring the image definition. And Image 4 compares the USM and FocusFixer results. directly.

5. Photograph v Photo + SmartSharpen

6. Photo + SmartSharpen v Photo + FocusFixer

Image 5 illustrates the impact of using the new SmartSharpen tool, again only a limited effect here and Image 6 is a comparison between the results of SmartSharpen and FocusFixer.

For the technically minded - this plot compares the luminance profile of the original image with those from the photograph, and the USM, FocusFixer and SmartSharpen enhanced versions. USM does little to improve the resolution and SmartSharpen achieves a similar result. Only FocusFixer actually improves the resolution to something close to the original. These images are taken from a whitepaper " Has USM had its day?" which will soon be available from our website.

Last - Next