Make blurry photos sharp and clear
Useful tips on shooting sharp photos, coupled with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom deblurring tools help your images show compelling detail.
Every photographer strives for high-quality shots. But occasionally things happen, and your most eye-catching photos may come out blurry. Don’t worry. Keep reading, and you’ll learn how to deblur with tips on setting your camera correctly and enhancing your shots using photo editing tools.
How to shoot crisp images
One main reason for blurry images is holding the camera incorrectly, resulting in camera shake. But even proper technique and the steadiest hands in the world, using the wrong camera settings results in blury shots. It’s time to revisit the basics of photography and understand how settings correlate to sharp images.
1. Make sure your camera is in focus
Before shooting, make sure your subject is far enough away from the camera so you can see the full composition, then focus on the correct part of your subject. Don’t hurry. Take your time to ensure you lock focus and get a clear image. Remember to hold the camera steadily or use a tripod.
2. Choose the correct shutter speed and aperture
Understanding the correlation between shutter speed (the time your camera takes to capture an image) and aperture (how shallow your depth of field is) is crucial to take a sharp picture. When the shutter speed is fast, you need a wider aperture to let more light in. Keep in mind that as the aperture goes wider, it’s more difficult to focus. One tip is to use a shutter speed with a denominator larger than your lens’ focal length. For example, with a 100mm lens, you should choose a shutter speed of at least 1/125 a second.
3. Use a low ISO
ISO refers to a camera’s sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the camera’s sensor becomes. When shooting in low light, shots are brighter with a higher ISO. Boosting the ISO can be very useful, but be careful. Setting your ISO too high creates undesirable ‘noise’ or grain. So if you want your photos to be super-focused, use the lowest ISO you can.
Post-edit to deblur
Once you’ve mastered the basics of taking sharp photos with the correct camera settings, perfect them with editing. Advance to the next level by using the following tools and settings in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to fine-tune your images.
- Detail panel: Select the part you’d like to add more clarity using the detail panel in the ‘develop’ module. Zoom in to make sure you’re working on the right spot.
- Sharpening settings: Adjust how much sharpening you need using the ‘amount’ slider. Be aware that the degree of sharpness depends on the type of image. For example, landscapes can generally endure a higher degree of sharpening than a close-up portrait.
- Radius and detail slider: When deblurring your image, the radius value indicates how much detail you want to keep. Bear in mind that smaller radius values are better for landscapes while larger values are better for portraits. Once you’ve sharpened your image, use the detail slider to make the edges stand out.
Try Lightroom today. You’ll be amazed how editing with Lightroom can help you produce impressive photos.