At Adobe MAX 2011, Adobe showed off an unbelievable deblurring feature that could make its way into the next Photoshop. At least, it would've been unbelievable if the company hadn't already delivered content-aware fill the year before. After an unsurprisingly enthusiastic response to the deblurrer, Adobe's peeled back the curtain just a bit to explain how the technology of the real-life "CSI enhance" works.

The whole process isn't quite as magic as it seems, and Adobe still has some problems to puzzle out before deblurring can become a shipping Photoshop feature. The big challenge comes from determining exactly what kind of blur is affecting a picture--if the tool can't apply the correct algorithm, it can accidentally make an image worse rather than better.

Adobe's deblurring tool uses multiple algorithms to analyze photos and then provide corrective changes adding image sharpness. When only one type of blur damages a photograph--say, camera shake, as demonstrated above--the results are incredible. But if camera shake and movement within the frame are both causing blur, the algorithms can detect the wrong kind of blur and apply the wrong corrections. That doesn't look so good.

In its current implementation, Adobe's tool can only solve for one kind of blur in an image. Photographs with no sharp edges can't be sharpened as effectively, and other factors like low light or image noise can cause problems as well. The CSI enhance effect is actually within the realm of possibility, though--Adobe thinks clarifying an image enough to make it legible is the deblurring tool's most practical application at this point. Cleaning up a photo enough to read text is easier than turning a blurry mess into a perfect, eye-pleasing photograph.

In other words, the deblurring tool already works to some extent, but Adobe's not ready to release it as a Photoshop feature just yet. Fingers crossed for CS6.

Images via Adobe