Hasta La Gadget!

Adobe’s new deblurring algorithm is like something out of science fiction

There are two things that work with photos in sci-fi movies that still don’t work in real life. One is saying “enhance” to your computer and having it magically zoom in and conjure new pixels from nowhere. And the other one is removing the blur from an image.

Thanks to the brainiacs at Adobe, the next version of Photoshop may actually take care of the second one. Above you see the before/after results of the new deblur tool (click to see it full-sized). The plugin — currently in the early prototype phase — first examines the image to work out what kind of blur it has. This generates a grayscale map which can be visualized as a line, with direction.

Then this information is used to correct the blur. The Photoshop team is keeping hush-hush on the details, but the main problems seem to be that combination blurs are very tricky to decipher. Thus, if you take a photo of a speeding car, it may blur. If you shake the camera at the same time, that will blur everything, not just the car. Separating these from each other requires a lot of processing power.

If you can stomach some idiot actor trying to be funny and heckling the poor technician who demoes the tool, you might like to watch the video of it in action. Deblur works especially well on text. This could certainly help with the shaky shots I take of menus and business cards with my cellphone camera.

The tech might be too far off to make it into the next version of Photoshop, but at least it has made it into the near future, instead of the far-future of movies.

Behind All the Buzz: Deblur Sneak Peek [Photoshop.com Blog]

See Also:

• Magic Software Re-Focuses Your Blurred Photos
• Filter Finds Data Hidden In Blur
• Samsung Patent Creates Shallow Depth-of-Field in Digicams …

The new EOS-1D X is impressive in every way — except looks

Canon has announced a new flagship DSLR, the EOS-1D X. The camera is supposed to take the place of the fast-shooting crop-sensor 1D Mk IV and the multi-megapixel full-frame 1DS Mk III.

The main draw is that you’re getting a full-frame 18MP camera that can shoot at 12fps whilst autofocusing. For comparison, the 1DS does 21 megapixels at 5fps, and the sportier 1D manages 16 megapixels at 10fps.

This makes it a great all-rounder, but studio shooters may prefer the extra pixels over the faster shooting speed, and many sports photographers prefer a crop-frame sensor as it effectively makes their lenses 50 percent longer.

The new EOS-1D X is also heavy on video, shooting 1080p footage at 24p (with plenty of other options). It will also split movies when you reach the 4GB limit without dropping a frame, letting you shoot for up to half an hour in one go. The camera is clearly aimed at pro movie shooters, with other features like “SMPTE-compliant timecode embedding,” and manual control of sound levels.

The press release over at DP REview has the full, exhaustive rundown of this ridiculously capable new camera, but I’ll mention just one more thing. The new AF system has face detection and recognition to let it track moving people. This is obviously most useful for sports.

My (currently up for sale) Nikon D700 is pretty tenacious in its focus-tracking, but add in face recognition and you could probably just let the camera shoot the football game on its own.

The EOS-1D X will launch in March 2012 for $6,800.

EOS-1D X press release [DP Review]

See Also:

• Canon EOS 1D Mark 4: Night Vision, 1080p Video
• Canon EOS-1D Mark III Digital SLR Announced
• More Stunning Video Shot With Canon 5D MKII DSLR

There are a lot of reasons the 1D X might be the most ridiculous DSLR ever made, but the numbers seem like a good place to start. A full-frame 18-megapixel sensor. ISO 204,800. 12fps RAW shooting. 61-point autofocus. Three DIGIC image processors. One gigabit ethernet port. More »

The only way to make Nikon’s app uglier is to view it pixel-doubled in an iPad screen

Nikon has released a handy little app, although its audience will likely be pretty limited — you need to own an iOS device and also the projector-equipped Nikon COOLPIX S1200pj camera. And even then you may want to hold off this free app, thanks to its horrible design.

iP-PJ Transfer — which sounds like something copyright lawyers might do at a sleepover — lets you use the camera’s projector to show content stored on your iPhone. Use it to project slideshows and documents, and also browse to any site using the built-in web browser.

The camera is connected to the iPhone using the Dock Connector cable that came with the camera (and if you don’t have one, then tough — Nikon doesn’t sell them separately). Once this is done, you have to transfer content into the app via iTunes file sharing (or via your computer’s browser). You can also access content from your iPhone’s camera roll (although the Nikon app calls it the “Camera Role”).

The oddest thing about this app, though (apart from the shoddy production values) is that you don’t really need it. Take a look at the instruction page for connecting the camera to an iOS device and you’ll see the camera works as a movie and slideshow projector out of the box. Better still, it works with the photos and videos already stored and organized on your device.

Still, the app is free, and if you hate yourself (and own the above devices) you owe it to yourself to download it and try to navigate its tortuous controls, if only to inflict PowerPoint presentations on other people. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

iP-PJ Transfer [iTunes via Photography Bay]

See Also:

• Nikon Crams Projector Into Compact Camera
• Nikon Digicam Doubles as Computer Projector

Just toss the ball in the air and it will shoot a full, 360-degreee panorama. Photo Jonas Pfeil

Imagine spending the time to take 36 perfectly spaced photographs and then later combining them into a fully scrollable 360-degree panoramic image. Now imaging doing the exact same thing, only instead of all that tedious work, you just toss a football-sized ball into the air.

This is just what the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera can do. Developed by Jonas Pfeil, Kristian Hildebrand, Carsten Gremzow, Bernd Bickel and Marc Alexa of the Computer Graphics Group in Berlin, the ball automates everything but the actual throwing.

Arranged around the ball are 36 2-megapixel fixed-focus cellphone cameras. When the ball is thrown, they fire simultaneously at the apex of the ball’s flight, capturing the scene in every direction (and including the photographer). Back at the lab (or home), you pull the images off via USB and view them in custom software developed by the team.

The result is somewhat akin to Google Street View, only more spectacular. This video shows it in action:

Because all the cameras in the 3-D printed foam-padded ball fire together, there is no ghosting between images. And because it is airborne, it can even fire downwards — something impossible if mounted in a tripod.

I’d love to play with this. I’d also love to see a video version, although the processing involved in stitching 360-degree movies together might make this less practical. Still, these pan-able panoramas are pretty awesome as it is.

Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera [Jonas Pfeil via Petapixel]

See Also:

• Camera Designed For Tossing
• Lomo Spinner Puts 360-Degree Panoramas Onto Film
• 18-Gigapixel Panorama Offers Breathtaking View of Prague …