What's New in Version 6.24

Improvements That Have Been Made

Focus Magic can now repair images with high JPG compression. The Mac version is still under construction.

Repair JPG Compression

Woman before JPG compression repair — Before

Woman after JPG compression repair — After

Here the blockyness caused by high JPG compression is removed.

What's New in Version 6.1

Improvements That Have Been Made

Another three and a half man-years of research and development has been put by our developers into creating Version 6.1 which is now available for Windows. The Mac version is still under construction. The main differences are:

1. The New Focusing Algorithm Produces a Cleaner Output

For the Focusing filter, Focus Magic now uses pattern matching rather than deconvolution (maths) to undo the blur of a photo. This produces a cleaner and more natural looking output which has fewer artefacts (distortions). The Motion Blur algorithm is however still the same as Version 5.

License Plate

2. A New Filter "Auto-Focus" Has Been Added

With "Auto-Focus", you can sharpen an image without having to determine the Blur Width first. Auto-Focus is now the preferred way of fixing out-of-focus blur. It is generally more accurate, less noisy and handles depth-of-field better.

In this case the ferris wheel in the background stays sharp, but the faces in the foreground are sharpened.

3. The Increase Resolution Filter Has Been Improved Substantially and Is New for the Photoshop Plugin

You can now increase the resolution of an image either X2 (200%) or X4 (400%). Where before this filter was only available to the Windows stand-alone program, it is now also available to the Photoshop plugin.

Poppy before resolution increase — Before

Poppy after Focus Magic resolution increase — After

Poppy enlarged with Photoshop Bicubic — Photoshop Bicubic

4. Focus Magic Can Now Deal with "Halos" Which Come from Digital Camera Sharpening

Nearly all "digital" cameras add halos as part of their "in-camera" sharpening. The problem however is that the camera improves the perceived sharpness and not the actual sharpness. It works by blurring the image slightly (a simple averaging operation), looking at how the pixels change, and then moving the pixels in the opposite direction. You could argue that by moving in the opposite direction of "more blur" you are getting "more sharpness".

Camera sharpening halo zoomed in — Zoomed In

Camera sharpening halo at normal size — Normal Size

Here you can see the halo around the man's head but it is not visible when viewed from a distance. It does however make the smaller (normal size) image look sharper.

If you open an image which has significant halos, Focus Magic will tell you and will recommend that you use the Increase Resolution filter.