Adobe Unveils Incredible Unblur Feature for Next Photoshop

user Aaron Charlie

date 25 Oct 2011

Adobe Unveils Incredible Unblur Feature for Next Photoshop

It is unclear whether this new feature will be for Photoshop CS5.5 or CS6 (or whether there even will be a CS5.5 due to CS5 Extended and Photoshop Touch) but what we do know is that Image Deblurring (or our preferred term 'unblur') is the most powerful addition to Photoshop in a long time. We even think it beats content aware fill and refine edge on the usefulness scale - the two latest updates to Photoshop, both taught as part of our Adobe Photoshop Training Course.

Mocked up results of Photoshop Image Deblurring. Photo by Heather Buckley.

Image Deblurring was revealed by Adobe during this month's keynote conference - Adobe Max. They also revealed Photoshop Touch, an imminent release for tablets - follow the link for our write up on that tool. Here is the full video of the announcement at Adobe Max, look out for the audience reaction at 2.33, 4.50 and 6.06. You may also notice Rainn Wilson, famous for playing Dwight in the American Office.

As you can tell from the video, this new tool is breathtaking and it's hard to believe it's not some elaborate trick by Adobe in which they actually took two photos. It's not - it's real.

Photoshop's Image Deblurring tool is going to be of most use to amateur photographers who have a problem with stabilising their shots. It's yet another Photoshop tool that almost encourages laziness from photographers. Why bother spending hours aiming for the perfect focus when Photoshop does it for you?

How does it work?

Photoshop Image Deblurring looks at the direction of the blur to work out which direction the camera was moving when the photo was taken. It uses this data to realign the pixels and so 'unblur' the photo. Pretty cool.

As I said it is unclear when this will be released - it still looks in the middle of development - and whether it will be for CS5.5 or CS6. Adobe are keeping details of a new Photoshop close to their chests - despite a dodgy fake CS6 download doing the rounds at the moment.

We believe it will either be released as part of a midway CS5.5 update early 2012 or more likely as part of a full release of CS6 in September/October 2012.

In the meantime make sure your Photoshop CS5 skills are up to date by coming on a Photoshop Course.