If you're the sort to mess around with digital photography from time to time, you've probably experimented with ways to fix problems in your images. Red-eye removal, for example, or maybe a little sharpening to make things a bit crisper.
Using a blur effect, believe it or not, can also fix problems in photos. There are two main areas where this can work. One would be working with an image file from a scan. If your scan picks up too much texture from the paper upon which the image resides, it can result in a moire effect on details, especially fine lines. It can also have a disturbing effect on skin tones - see the scan of a photo of my mom when she was a little girl. Looks like she had some sort of pox!
Anyway, start with a quarter-pixel basic blur, and see how that does for you. Ratchet it up until the undesirable effect is gone, but before you start to soften the image too much.
Before-and-after, enlarged to show effect.
The other place where blurring REALLY comes in handy is for when you want to include photos in your movies - for example, an iMovie that mixes video with a nice pan/scan effect over digital photos. Photos that contain a lot of thin lines or textures or patterns will often appear to "quiver" or pulsate on the screen, not too badly on the computer but much much worse on a TV set. This has to do with a lot of different factors such as interlacing, but just know for now that to get around it, put a 1 pixel Gaussian blur on your photo before laying it into your timeline, and your problem will be solved!
And don't forget - don't go by what you see on your computer screen alone. It's no substitute for burning a DVD and watching on a standard set when you need to be sure that everything looks as good as it can.
1 comment:
A blur is also good before you size an image smaller. It actually makes the image SHARPER after it has been resized downward. Try it and see!
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