Once installed FocusFixer V2 will appear as a Filter option in Photoshop. The control panel will display the original image in the left window and the corrected result in the right hand window. Move around the image by dragging the mouse to the preferred location. Adjust the level of zoom with the + or - icon.
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The primary control is the Deblur. You can use this in Auto-focus or manual mode.
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In manual mode the slider can be adjusted from 0 to 40. The slider will remember your setting from the last time you used FocusFixer V2. Too low a value (such as we see in the example above in manual mode) and your photograph will remain soft, too high a value will give artifacts. Between these two is a "sweet spot" where the correction exactly matches the softness caused by even the best cameras and optics.
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In Auto-focus mode the slider is disabled and the "sweet spot" will be found for you by FocusFixer's blind-deconvolution engine (as in the above example). Auto-focus can be used in "Preview" or "Centre-weighted" modes.
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In "Preview" mode it will use the central region of the preview.
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In "Centre-weighted" mode FocusFixer V2 will search your entire photo for the least soft regions and base its deblur value on those. This avoids over-sharpening any regions and retains depth of field effects. When the Auto-focus comes to a decision, in Centre-weighted or Preview modes, it will set the slider and report the numerical value in the box.
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In the example above I have chosen the part of the photograph that is most in-focus so the Preview and Centre weighted will give the same result. It is worth noting that a deblur value of zero (the minimum displayed is 0.1) means that the lens was in-focus, natural lens softness will still be present and will be corrected for. Values above zero mean that the image was to some exent out-of-focus. The example above is very mildly out-of-focus (and this happens to the best of us).
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The Threshold slider can be used to suppress noise if your photo was taken under high-ISO or low-light conditions. The Threshold is usually left at zero for good cameras working in a normal ISO range.
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To achieve superior results, FocusFixer models the behaviour of your camera and optics using the LensFIT feature. This can be done automatically by reading information from the EXIF data in your photograph. Some cameras provide all the information needed by LensFIT, for others you may need to specify the Make, Model and F/number to activate LensFIT. (Check here for a list of currently supported cameras.)
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Once you're happy with the preview, click OK and the selected image or image region will be corrected ("sharpened") and the result returned to Photoshop. FocusFixer V2 can be used with Photoshop automation for batch processing in manual or automatic deblur modes. The Auto-focus is an enabling technology for batch processing and pre-sharpening.
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FocusFixer V2 explodes the myth that once an image has been blurred the information is lost. The vast majority of the information is still there in a blurred image - it is just not in a form that looks "good" to us. It is what the camera saw and not what we would have seen with our own eyes (assuming you were wearing any necessary optical correction apparatus). If you know how the image was softened or blurred by the lens, this can be used to reverse the blur, to correct the image - to make it sharper. When you view a print of a photograph that has been through FocusFixer it is through the same, possibly optically corrected, eyes, but without the added blur of the lens. It is worth noting here that the best lens you can buy (and they are very good) has to obey the laws of physics and will soften an image even when perfectly in-focus. FocusFixer V2 can undo this softening with remarkable results.
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How does FocusFixer V2 work? The Point Spread Function of an optical system is simply the probability distribution of where the next photon will be observed on the imager, and to every observable there corresponds a linear operator, the eigen values of these are the only possible results of a measurement. FocusFixer V2 just puts the light back where it belongs.
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Unsharp masking (USM) cannot do this - it attempts to remove blur by blurring the already soft image some more and then subtracting an "Amount" of this from the original image. This perceptual trick often looks acceptable but very effectively enhances noise - precisely not what you want - and cannot match the clarity, fidelity and realism of the results from FocusFixer. If you still don't get it (and even if you do), check out the FocusFixer / Smart Sharpen / USM comparison. FocusFixer produces superior results on soft photos (as well as those with more obvious focus blur) - it just does simply put the light back where it belongs.
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FocusFixer is designed for professionals - photographers, graphic designers, web designers and forensic scientists included - and it is so easy to install and apply that it will prove a valuable image editing tool for the keen amateur photographer as well.
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FocusFixer V2 is available now for Windows and Mac OS X and is designed to be used with Adobe's Photoshop and compatible image editing suites. Check compatibility here. 
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