Sharpen Blurry Words

[kristinleigh]

Hello,

Unfortunately I cannot attach the document due to it being involved in a lawsuit and it is classified information, but I have a document where the words on it are very very blurry. I need to sharpen the image as much as possible. I know there is a smart sharpen on photoshop, but I was wondering if there are other ways to make an image with words as clear as possible?

Thanks y'all!

 

[Rich54]

Hard to say without seeing the specific situation, so this is purely theoretical. One possibility is to use a Levels adjustment layer to increase the whites (presumably the color of the paper) and also increase the blacks of the text. By boosting both black and white, you can sometimes sharpen the blurry edges of the letters.

If I start with this blurry text...




... I can use a Levels adjustment layer to boost the whites and blacks by moving the sliders where the red arrows are pointing.

 

[JeffK]

As in most things..it depends:
- hat you mean by very very blurry;
- the quality of the scanned image
- is it all readable

It's very difficult to bring back a highly blurred image. There are several things to try and @Rich54 has given you one. But the text was fuzzy not blurred.

Here's a sample of a blurred image:



Here's my attempt using Topaz Sharpen:



Here's one with Topaz Gigapixel applied:



Getting better but so far only the headline text is about readable.

Here's one more I tried - first used Layer Styles to remove all white background.
Then applied Topaz Sharpen:



It's better but still only the bold heads are really recognizable.

Bottom line - the quality of the original document, even if out of focus, has to have some recognizable property to it.

If you'd like you can post a small portion of text without any recognizable identification of the parties involved. Then we can try some different methods to see if a readable image can be pulled from it.

Maybe others will weigh in with some additional options.