Unshake

Unshake is an automatic deconvolver, also known as a "blind" deconvolver. Most image processors offer pre-defined filters which have been found useful after a lot of use. They bring out hidden detail by emphasising changes (like edges) in pictures.

Distinct from this, deconvolvers try to recover what the original scene looked like, but they have the problem that one needs to specify exactly how the picture was blurred in the first place (for example, if the camera was poorly focused, one would ideally specify not just how bad the focus was, but how fast the shutter moved at each phase of its cycle, and how many leaves the shutter had).

An automatic deconvolver attempts to estimate itself how the picture was blurred in the first place, then to deduce what the original scene would have looked like. This is a very difficult task, involving automatically setting dozens or hundreds of controls.

Unshake can only usually double or treble the resolution of a blurred picture. Nonetheless, Unshake is still, after first being released in August 2000, the only automatic deconvolver available which works on normal domestic photographs, the only free automatic deconvolver designed for non-specialists to use, and the only automatic deconvolver which is capable of handling poor focus and mild camera shake in single photographs of people or scenery. To my knowledge. If any one knows of another example, please let me know, and I will amend this paragraph!

The latest release, Unshake 1.5, is easier to use, gives better results, and gives the user control over the time spent on processing the photographs, and over what part of the image the deconvolution will be based on. Because it takes time to work, it now allows the user to estimate how long the processing will take, before committing the job.