Yeah, well I would consider deconvolution sharpening a sharpening for effect...
You tell me what the PSF is for a Canon 24-105mm lens is at 48mm and I might sit up an listen....
The problem with the advocates of the deconvolution kernel type of sharpening is that in practice, they CAN'T provide a point spread function worth a crap.
Hi Jeff, I've come to know you as a person who likes to play hard ball, so allow me to respond likewise
Too bad, but apparently you've not being paying attention to developments in scientific research (admittedly not everyone's cup of thea). Many moons ago, several years actually, there have been successful attempts to characterize the Point Spread Function (PSF), across the image (AKA spatially variant PSFs), automatically.
Yes, if you know the EXACT method of blurring and can program the EXACT opposite effect in sharpening then you can indeed turn fuzzy crap out of the Hubble telescope into usable images.
No, it doesn't require to know the EXACT PSF a priory. As the simple FocusMagic approximation of several years ago already proved, it can be successfully determined automatically and, by trial and error, improved upon for specific regons in the image plane.
I do appreciate that you've gone throught the effort of looking up what the RL restoration is about (Hubble is one area), but that's before the adaptive version, and way before the improved versions were even mentioned in research.
BTW, a kind suggestion, please do gently kick people like Chris Cox's behind if he's still operating somewhere in Adobe's code optimalization's arena and has any influence on future developments. I've exchanged some Usenet suggestions with him when he still resisted HDR tonemapping in Photoshop, he seemed to be quite conformative of the status quo, not innovative.
In reality all the theoretical hocus-pocus regarding deconvolution is just that...theoretical applications of algorithms that don't get too far off the ground in real life photographic applications.
Au contraire mon ami. As an example of (by now ancient) technology, please look at
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk_r13/help/toolbox/images/deblurr8.html, not theoretical at all (even Photoshop has reluctantly adopted something vagely similar (but less effective) in its Smart Sharpen filter). There are many more examples, but I'm not sure if people are open minded enough to digest them. Theoretical? I do such restorations all the time, it's even been part of a free Raw converter called
RawTherapee for some time, and I would also welcome some proactive movements from the established industry, instead of dragging behind.
Countering the effects of AA filters and lens induced softness ain't gonna happen with arbitrary PFS (point spread functions).
The AA-filter, even when combined with the theoretical diffraction (of a perfectly round aperture) used to take the image, is one of the simplest effects to restore. It's the spatial variation across the image plane that's going to challenge some of the coding dinosaurs.
When you get the key to the universe, let me know (I'll bet some SOB will change the lock while you ain't looking).
Nice try, but no sigar. I'm not a person to get intimidated by reputation alone. On the contrary, I'm much easier to get along with without (attempted) intimidation or ridicule ... There is no need for a key to the universe, just getting up to speed with it will do ...
Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate what Bruce and you have achieved, but let's not stick to that and let's collectively move on to the next level, please. It's overdue for some time.
Cheers,
Bart