foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

It didn't do much for her teeth. LOL

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

This image was NOT taken in 1920. Her dress and style scream 1950's or later.
What joke are you playing at?

MrPhotog

As I read it, I think the poster’s question should be taken generically.

While the particular example is obviously much more modern, the underlying problem is the same: Regardless of the actual date a picture was created, it is just as difficult to ‘refocus’ it after the fact.

There are plenty of much older images (done as tintypes) which are a bit fuzzy, and that gets exaggerated when they are copied and enlarged. Any software that can fix one should be able to fix more, as well.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Yes, that is true, put I have never seen a software package yet that can do it as well as the sample shown.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

That was my first impression as well. But as you suspect, what I've seen from PixImperfect, there are tools that provide the digital more or less equivalent of a classic airbrush retoucher. There used to be a product called Focus Magic that could really enhance an image that was focus-soft/motion-blurred.

MrPhotog

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.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Thank you, you are quite right. Obviously that photo I attached was not 1920. I also do many from that era as well

dajanes4

I frequently use "High Pass" filter with difficult subjects. Filter>Other>High Pass and change blend mode to overlay or soft light

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Either black magic or witchcraft, which are very similar, but slightly different.

Edward Booth Loc: Riverview, Florida

In Photoshop under the Sharpen Filter, try "Shake Reduction"

Edward Booth Loc: Riverview, Florida

In Photoshop, under the Filter, try Shake Reduction"

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

After looking at the before and after, the process used appears to me to be that of Portrait Professional Studio v.22.

There are two fundamental formats in graphic images which are vector (which has coordinates that can be manipulated, such as technical drawings, and raster which cannot. Because an image produced by a camera, (which is actually a scanning device itself) is produced in a raster format, which is like being constructed of tiny grains of colored sand.

Imagine that we have before us such an image and it is blurred for it was produced out of focus...made of colored sand. Now we take a stick and we push grains around trying to improve it. We are talented enough to know how to infill areas between hues that may be missing to help sharpen. Although features get quite weird when we look at it on a grain by grain basis, it looks better to the common eye when viewed at a distance. Billboard Art is that way. If we looked at it while standing next to it, it would look very pixelated. However from hundreds of feet away it looks appealing. Graphic artists know that they do not need to create high-resolution art on huge images that will only be seen from a distance.

I've always told my understudies, "You can't make chicken soup out of chicken poop!" and the best efforts are always reduced to the lowest original features.

Dug E Pi

IMO this may be a case of a trickster. Some nefarious folk will use a sharp picture then blur it up stating the before and after are reversed. They do this to get paid for restoring photos. Looking at the example you have used there are shadows on the teeth from where braces may have been. The before does not look like there is enough resolution to gather that. Just my thoughts.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Agreed, another likely candidate is Portrait Professional, although maybe not from the hands of a fully experienced user of this tool.

Don, the 2nd son Loc: Crowded Florida

But, it appears to only apply to iOS on an iPhone not Windows on a PC.