Adobe MAX 2011 - Photoshop Image Deblurring Tool

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by LazyGuy
I'm surprised by your skepticism. You of all people should know that mathematics can do seemingly miraculous things.

The difference is on the seemingly.

As a programmer and a photography fan (although not as technically advanced as I would like), I know the limitations faced by any system working with a photo like the ones I have seen posted on ATS.

Ah a programer, that explains your love / skill / use of mathematics. Just for info, my comment was partially motivated by you seemingly shooting a hole in my theory about the rolling rock on Mars. (Link) You called my guesstimate and raised me with a calculation and I folded. I gave up without a fight but now that I've rekindled an interest in defending my idea I've posted a rebuttal. My Post

As for this new Photoshop tool, I think that any unbiased tool that can be used to clarify an image is worthwhile.

Most UFO photos are taken by someone who just happens to have a camera and just happened to see something they think is interesting enough to try to take a photo of. The photographer is likely to be an amateur and the camera is likely to be of a lower grade that what the average Paparazzi would use. The photographer is likely excited and trying to come to grips (assuming a legit sighting) with what they are seeing the camera is probably going to move around a lot. The cards are stacked pretty high against the picture depicting precisely what the photographer has seen through his naked eye. Given the circumstances focus, exposure, and camera jitter are likely to result in an indistinct blob of light off in the distance.

I agree, it may not help out too much with many images, but discounting the software without actually trying it is a little pessimistic. Adobe has vast resources to devote to development of new functionality. They're not the industry leader in photographic manipulation because they've got a catchy slogan or killer TV commercials. They do pixels better than anyone else hands down.

If a software tool can be used to analyze and correct for at least some of the distortion it would make it that much easier to identify what the object in the photo really is.

A human mind is only limited by its own imagination. Albert Einstein's imagination is what allowed him to solve mysteries that are still being tested and explored. Limiting Adobe's programers by your own expertise isn't a valid argument.

Originally posted by LazyGuy
Just for info, my comment was partially motivated by you seemingly shooting a hole in my theory about the rolling rock on Mars. (Link) You called my guesstimate and raised me with a calculation and I folded. I gave up without a fight but now that I've rekindled an interest in defending my idea I've posted a rebuttal. My Post

I saw that post, I will post an answer as soon as I find the data I am looking for.

The cards are stacked pretty high against the picture depicting precisely what the photographer has seen through his naked eye. Given the circumstances focus, exposure, and camera jitter are likely to result in an indistinct blob of light off in the distance.

From what I have seen, although I used just some four different cameras, any photo taken with a zoom less than 10 or 12x will show things with less detail than when seen with the naked eye, that's one reason many photos do not show exactly what the witness saw. As for the circumstances, I know that, when pressed for time, we cannot afford the luxury to, if we have a camera with those possibilities, change all the settings to make the best shot. Even yesterday, while I was changing the settings on my camera to take some photos of a moth, she flew away.

I agree, it may not help out too much with many images, but discounting the software without actually trying it is a little pessimistic. Adobe has vast resources to devote to development of new functionality. They're not the industry leader in photographic manipulation because they've got a catchy slogan or killer TV commercials. They do pixels better than anyone else hands down.

From what I have seen (and from my using of Photoshop, limited to an experiment I made some years ago at altering photos to see if anyone could see that the photo was altered), Photoshop gained its market position because it is made for the people that work with images for publishing, so the tools work in an expected and logical way, so someone, like me, without any experience with the software, could be working very fast after just some two or three hours of use.

That doesn't mean that they make things better or that they do things nobody else does. In the previous version, for example, they were presenting a new tool to remove unwanted objects from photos, but that tool was only an automated version of the clone tool, with noticeable repetition of the cloned area if the area to be cleared was bigger than the one Photoshop "thought" was the best to use as source for cloning.

That's one of the reasons I am not expecting any ground-breaking tool, I'm expecting an automated version of their existing tools.

If a software tool can be used to analyze and correct for at least some of the distortion it would make it that much easier to identify what the object in the photo really is.

Yes, but the problem is that people rely too much on external tools when they should start by using the ones they have built-in since birth, specially their eyes and their brain, many things that people point out in a photo as the result of some Photoshop work (usually just some filters that change almost nothing for the better and too much for the worst) were already visible in the original, unchanged photo, if people looked at it with inquiring eyes and a mind prepared for any possibility.

If we are looking for image-analizing software, Photoshop was not made for it, and we should look instead in the scientific use of images, not on the publicity use of images.

A human mind is only limited by its own imagination. Albert Einstein's imagination is what allowed him to solve mysteries that are still being tested and explored. Limiting Adobe's programers by your own expertise isn't a valid argument.

No, I'm not limiting anything, I just don't expect them to create new ways of doing things, because that's not their market, as I said above, I'm only expecting new ways of making things faster by automating already existing tools.

But time will tell.

Yes, but the problem is that people rely too much on external tools when they should start by using the ones they have built-in since birth, specially their eyes and their brain, many things that people point out in a photo as the result of some Photoshop work (usually just some filters that change almost nothing for the better and too much for the worst) were already visible in the original, unchanged photo, if people looked at it with inquiring eyes and a mind prepared for any possibility.

Yes and no ...

Eyes aren't so great either. Since eyes generally require contrast between tonal ranges/colors for comparison, image tools are incredibly awesome at fixing the failings of our beloved orbs and making things easier to look at. Also the quality of a persons eyes vary. My RGB values (generally!) don't.

The problem that arises, especially with artistic tools like photoshop, is that the user doesn't actually know (or care I believe in most cases) what they are doing. In fact it's pretty rare that persons even write down what they do. In these situations there are as many false positives as actual results ... and often people use some odd filters to try to do who knows what.

Originally posted by ArMaP

In the previous version, for example, they were presenting a new tool to remove unwanted objects from photos, but that tool was only an automated version of the clone tool, with noticeable repetition of the cloned area if the area to be cleared was bigger than the one Photoshop "thought" was the best to use as source for cloning.

That's one of the reasons I am not expecting any ground-breaking tool, I'm expecting an automated version of their existing tools.

If we are looking for image-analizing software, Photoshop was not made for it, and we should look instead in the scientific use of images, not on the publicity use of images.

I just don't expect them to create new ways of doing things, because that's not their market, as I said above, I'm only expecting new ways of making things faster by automating already existing tools.

But time will tell.

Did you even watch the video?

I do agree with your last line though...
Time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a closer look at Topaz In Focus software which has a similar tool as I referenced in an earlier post in this thread.

Originally posted by LazyGuy
Did you even watch the video?

Now I did.

They even talk about that tool that removes objects that I used as an example.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by LazyGuy
Did you even watch the video?

Now I did.

They even talk about that tool that removes objects that I used as an example.

Well, thank you for your honesty. +1 Respect
Commenting exhaustively without bothering to watch the video. -2 Respect +1 BS Meter
I'm considering adding you to my Rivals list.

From your earlier comments, I guess you don't think too highly of Adobe.
So, if Adobe is incapable of creating anything new then, I guess, they stole all their original tools.
Wouldn't the patent lawyers have called them on that by now?


New theory...
As a programer, did you once work for Adobe?

Adobe are refining existing research and putting it into one handy package of their flagship product. Whilst the results are definitely interesting, it's misleading for Adobe to claim that their work is new and ground breaking.

Originally posted by LazyGuy
So, if Adobe is incapable of creating anything new then, I guess, they stole all their original tools.
Wouldn't the patent lawyers have called them on that by now?

John is correct.

Adobe's initial work was developed from experience with Pixar/ILM which already existed, and also existing dark room techniques a hundred years old. Apps like Deluxe Paint, Mathematic, and Matlab which existed at the time had many similar functions to Photoshop (and some extra at the time, since essentially some of this is programming languages).

Photoshops first implementation was copying/recreating dark room techniques. To give an idea ... the first compositing (or combination photographs) were created in the 1850's approx, Adobe's 'Magic Wand' is actually a chroma key, and the first time a color difference method (think blue screen) was used in the major motion picture was 'Ben Hur' in 1959.

You can't really patent mathematical functions. It would be a bit like someone copyrighting numbers.

PS ... I seriously doubt ArMap is a previous adobe programmer

Originally posted by LazyGuy
Well, thank you for your honesty. +1 Respect

Thanks.

Commenting exhaustively without bothering to watch the video. -2 Respect +1 BS Meter
I'm considering adding you to my Rivals list.

I hate videos, I think they are a waste of time, forcing us to watch 5 minutes to see something that takes only 30 seconds. Also, as you said that the video wasn't "high quality" (that's an understatement, but I think it was stabilized and that made it worse) and that it was "tough to see the changes the software made" and you looked more impressed by the people's reactions (I can tell you that when someone is watching a presentation from some software company it usually means that they are there because they have some connection to the company, either as a client or as part of the company, one of the best examples being the Bill Gates "wanabees" that appear in all Microsoft presentations), it made me less interested in the video. Also, having seen the previous presentation of the "content aware fill" tool and how it works in real life, I can tell you that I'm not a believer in those Adobe presentations.

From your earlier comments, I guess you don't think too highly of Adobe.

That's right.

So, if Adobe is incapable of creating anything new then, I guess, they stole all their original tools.

I didn't said (wrote) that, I said I am not expecting them to make really new things, and even if they aren't making new things now it doesn't mean that they couldn't do it when they started, some 30 years ago. After all, they are responsible for Postscript and scalable fonts.

Wouldn't the patent lawyers have called them on that by now?

Not if they bought the patents or the distribution rights, that's how they got Photoshop.

New theory...
As a programer, did you once work for Adobe?

No, my work as a programmer is limited to a small Portuguese company.

But I once created a new circle function to replace the one from the ZX Spectrum operating system, and mine was rounder.