Need help clearing up a photo

[chaz]

Hello everyone! Hope all is well. A few of my real close friends run a website and company where they make live hunting videos and sell them in stores and online. Anyways, they bought a piece of land (10 acers) and setup a bunch of tree stands and video equipment. Well the neighbor that boarders their property is very against hunting and hates the fact they have the right to hunt there. So he has been ripping down their tree stands and destroying their equipment. My buddies hid two cameras and put 2 tree stands back up. Of course he came back to rip them down, he found and destroyed 1 camera, but he didn't find the other one luckily! We have a pretty good shot of him, it's just from a far distance. I can zoom in on my phone and almost make out his fast, so I figured using CS6 would definately be able to get me a clear face so we can take it to the cops and get this jerk outta here. I'm working on getting the original picture, I think an email program shrunk the copy I have down. I have attached it below.

 

[Tom Mann]

Having the original instead of a down-rez'ed copy will help quite a bit, so you should definitely continue to try to get the original.

Unfortunately, the real world of post processing is not like CSI and other shows where the cops can zoom in to photos by incredible amounts. The fundamental problem is that the picture is full of artifacts that are about the same size as the features on his face, so if you try to minimize the artifacts, you blur his face further. OTOH, if you try to sharpen the features on his face, you also exaggerate the artifacts.

This is about all I could do with what you posted, and I threw a bunch of sophisticated algorithms at it including a Fourier transform filter, a fractal-based enlarging plug-in, an algorithm specifically designed to reduce JPG artifacts, two algorithms specifically designed to re-focus images, etc.. BTW, the color balance was way off (too much magenta), so I tweaked that as well.

Good luck,

Tom M

 

[chaz]

Having the original instead of a down-rez'ed copy will help quite a bit, so you should definitely continue to try to get the original.

Unfortunately, the real world of post processing is not like CSI and other shows where the cops can zoom in to photos by incredible amounts. The fundamental problem is that the picture is full of artifacts that are about the same size as the features on his face, so if you try to minimize the artifacts, you blur his face further. OTOH, if you try to sharpen the features on his face, you also exaggerate the artifacts.

This is about all I could do with what you posted, and I threw a bunch of sophisticated algorithms at it including a Fourier transform filter, a fractal-based enlarging plug-in, an algorithm specifically designed to reduce JPG artifacts, two algorithms specifically designed to re-focus images, etc.. BTW, the color balance was way off (too much magenta), so I tweaked that as well.

Good luck,

Tom M

Hey bud. Thank you very much for taking your own time to help me out! I am getting my hands on the original image today. I see you attached the image, but I'm new to this board and don't know how to download the copy you made, so I can open it up and see.

Thanks again,

Chaz.

 

[Tom Mann]

You're welcome, Chaz. The easiest way to save the image I posted is just right-click on it, and select "Save Image As", at least on a PC. I know there is something analogous on a Mac, but I don't remember the exact keystroke.

Let us know when you get a copy of the original. Hopefully, it will be higher resolution and with fewer JPG compression artifacts.

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[Remote-Medic]

Sorted.