billnikon wrote:
Yes, that is true, put I have never seen a software package yet that can do it as well as the sample shown.
Maybe you haven’t seen the software, but I am sure you have seen the results from it.
About 1970 I read an article (probably in a photo magazine) about NASA’s use of a supercomputer (in those days, probably a Cray) to sharpen the images brought home from the moon landing. They did have a program, and it did work. But even with a supercomputer it took quite a while to correct a single image.
It is pretty well known that the camera taken to the moon was based on a Hasselblad with a 70 mm film back. Controls were modified so they could be worked by hands that were inside space-suit gloves. Focus, however, was not an option allowed to the astronaut. The cameras were fixed focus.
The moon is about as far from the sun as the Earth is, and with no lunar atmosphere there are never any clouds, so the ‘sunny 16’ rule applied to exposure, and a small aperture gave a lot of depth of field.
But the NASA computer, knowing the focal length of the lens and the aperture was able to determine the circles of confusion produced, and shrink them. Essentially, Reducing every halo to a dot, and producing a much sharper result. Effectively it gave you an in-focus image, where before there was a fuzzy one.
Those are fuzzy memories from 50 years ago. I was searching the web, looking for more details on NASA’s photo improvement software or computer programs, and came upon this software.
https://www.focusmagic.com/The website looks impressive. And it looks like it might be able to accomplish the OPs goals.
But the internet is lubricated with snakeoil. If anyone wants to try this ( or has already tried it) I’m very interested in hearing their experiences.
About 1993 I toured the Air and Space Museum in DC and saw one of the NASA supercomputers from the era of the moon missions. I was struck by the fact that it had the same specs as the 486-66 desktop computer on my office desk. Remembering the story of the refocusing software, I wondered if someone might someday port that into a program for home computers.
Perhaps that is what was done with this. The company behind focusmagic says they work with NASA, so who knows.