Heading out
We're riding out of Amsterdam CS; it's raining, as it probably is in Cologne!
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We're riding out of Amsterdam CS; it's raining, as it probably is in Cologne!
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Just back from my trip through Iran and Central Asia, I'm finding myself with a load of pictures - many of which were taken from a moving bus (there was little occasion to stop on some very long travel days). The result: some of those pictures would have been quite nice, were it not for some movement blur.
A great occasion to test Focus Magic which can - both as a stand-alone application and as a Photoshop-compatible plugin - deblur and tackle movement blur by using a deconvolution algorithm. Of course, if the blur is very bad, the image information just isn't there to work with, but if it isn't too bad, it should be able to improve an image.
I picked a "test" image (one I really, really wanted to improve), and set to work. Besides Focus magic, I tested two other programs as well: Picture Cooler (primarily a sharpening application, the deblurring is still experimental) and Meesoft Image Analyzer; the latter seemed more capable at deblurring, but for my purpose, both programs had a big disadvantage: they function as stand-alone programs only, while I needed to be able to work on a selection. Of course this doesn't say anything about the overall quality of these two programs - just that they're not very suitable for deblurring if you need to operate on an image selection.
On close inspection, I found there were various areas with different amounts of movement blur, and even different directions in my image. Consider a moving bus, and a stationary object along the road: I panned to get the object as best as possible in the middle of the image. You then have the movement of the bus with respect to different parts of the landscape (different distance result in different amounts of movement blur, and perspective adds to that); the road is uneven, so you get a bit of up-and-down movement as well; and finally there's the panning camera, itself moving relative to the landscape and the objects inside it. All the different directions and amounts of blur made it necessary to work with selections.
So, I loaded my "test" image in Paint Shop Pro (PSP), and worked with Focus Magic on a series of selections that had more-or-less similar movement blur. The effect on the main object (with my panning the "most stationary" bit) was stunning. In addition, I used PSP itself to actually add a little blur to the far background and the near foreground. Then I did a little bit of color enhancement to bring out the colors of the object (it was all in the shadow), and finally I used some Helicon Filter retouching to get rid of some artifacts, by some selective blurring and a touch of selective sharpening.
The first two images show the pull picture: the original and the end result, both reduced in size to 640x480: just to give an impression. These are followed by three 100% crops of the same region: the original, the image edited with Focus Magic applied to some selections and some blurring to others, and finally the end result with some color enhancement and artifact removal.
Needless to say, I'm very happy with the results of Focus Magic, and will register it today!
(Oh, BTW - the image was taken along the Tajik - Afghan border (from the Tajik side) where there are a few areas that still have landmines; you're quite safe as long as you stay on the road, though!)
I've got a new camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1), and on Friday took it out for the first time to see how well it handles without having read all of the manual. The answer is: very well, the user interface is very well designed and most basic things are obvious or easily accessible. I'll still have to study and practice a bit though.
With the sudden balmy weather, it seemed everything had suddenly burst into bloom. This is one of the shots I liked the best.
Lucida Sans Unicode (file name L_10646.TTF) does not have the glyph for Unicode Character 'BLACK UNIVERSAL RECYCLING SYMBOL' (U+267B) defined.
In fact, none of the 465 fonts I have installed actually has that glyph defined. The question is: which (commonly installed) font does?
I just tried adding a location to Yahoo Local. The form has a dropdown with a large (maybe complete) list of countries, but although I entered a complete and valid address in the Netherlands, it is not "recognized".
Compare the screenshot with the address as listed on the business' site.
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Marjolein Katsma
Info: http://marjoleinkatsma.com/personal/
Blog: http://blog.marjoleinkatsma.com/
Report spam: http://banspam.javawoman.com/report3.html
I just signed up for Wakoopa: It "tracks" what software you're using and allows you to get recommendations on the basis of that, amongst other things.
I've already discovered that it has a sense of humor, as evidenced by one of the first recommendations it made shortly after it started gathering data on what software I use:
...since I absolutely *hate* WYSINWYG editors.
Well, what a disappointment - I headed straight for the "HTML" which brings up an HTML "editor" that is three times as wide a(at least) as my browser window, and actually never finishes loading - the status bar keeps showing "Transferring data from engine26.woopra.com..." and I never get to the point where I can click and get a cursor to type some text.
BTW, this WYSINWYG editor is also too wide (though not by as much as the HTML non-editor). Surely, since it's all JavaScript-driven, you can just ask the browser what the size of its client area is?
Sorry, nice idea, bad implementation. Email is just easier!
So, I've arrived!
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Marjolein Katsma
Info: http://marjoleinkatsma.com/personal/
General blog: http://my.opera.com/JavaWoman/
Travel blog: http://blog.iamback.com/
Report spam: http://banspam.javawoman.com/report3.html
webdeveloper (for hire!) with a passion for web standards and accessibility and an incurable itch to travel. /me is a she :)
more at http://identi.ca/marjoleink
