Hello cdn Did you run Focus Magic as a plug-in for your favourite photo editor or as a freestanding app on the PC? I use Focus Magic as a plug-in on Mac BUT its time is running out because it is an old plug-in and requires a system add-on, Rosetta, to run. You would be running OS X.6.7, I presume. If Rosetta is not installed, you can install it using the system installation disk. If you follow the upgrade path to the new Lion OS (OS X.7) in a few months, Rosetta will no longer work so Focus Magic will no longer work.
You will require a different version of Focus Magic to run on the Mac too, so probably not a good investment at this time. I use PhotoLine, a 32 and 64 bit app (runs on both Mac and PC) as my main photo editor. It has excellent sharpening built in - straight sharpening, unsharp masking and adaptive sharpening, all adjustable with preview.
Sep 26, 2017 - Learn how make images clear on iOS, Android, PC and Mac here. Mac offers less apps for making pictures clear but still has a number of good paid. A few Android apps available that enable you to sharpen blurry photos. The Best Photo Editing Software Programs. To find the best photo editing software, we pitted the best programs tech-giant Adobe has to offer (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Photo Elements) against three highly commended competitors to find out which one was user-friendly enough for beginners and powerful enough for professionals.
Worth a look at US$85/€59. Cheers, geoff - Geoffrey Heard.
Yes about the sharpening in Preview! But sometimes Preview can odd things and it shouldn't really be relied on as anything other than a casual use editor. So, the OP could use iPhoto which comes with every new Mac. And Camera Raw is really great. The images are sharper out of the gate, and the sharpening tools are hugely improved. Available as part of the budget level PSE. JPGs and Tiffs can be opened in ACR, too.
Also, the tools provided in PSE aren't bad, either. A huge bonus advantage to going the ACR/PSE route is the superb noise reduction provided in the current ACR, which makes third party noise reduction plug-ins superfluous for many users. IMO, much better than anything Apple has. Conchita wrote: Unfortunately I wouldn't hold your breath. It's been many years since the mac version had any kind of update. The following statement has been on their website since at least 2009, and probably since 2008. Focus Magic works on PowerPC versions of the Apple Mac from OS X onwards but currently only works with Intel-Macs when used with Rosetta.
For details, please refer to our supported programs page. We will be releasing a Universal Binary version, however, the developers are currently working on another project which is the reason for the delay. I have emailed the company several times, and each time they reply with this same statement. I wonder if the other project is making fries at McDonalds. Jeff My cat, who likes to sprawl on my keyboard, gets credit for anything I write that makes sense. I use Photoshop for sharpening but Topaz Labs InFocus for detail and contrast enhancement. InFocus has a neat function called Micro Contrast and it adjusts the contrast at the edges which is a lot better than sharpening in most situations.
Do your own experiment and sharpen an image and then save a copy and then go back and adjust the Levels and contrast and then see how much sharpening is needed. In most situations I find that after adjusting Levels and Contrast that much less sharpening or often no sharpening is needed as such. I then only sharpen when shrinking images and the amount depends entirely upon the subject and the new size of the image file.
I sharpen a 300ppi file a lot more than a 1000ppi one. I've been using Nik Pro Sharpener as a plugin in CS5 for both pre and post sharpening and it works great. I used to use Focus Magic as a presharpener in CS5 under windoze but as it won't run on an Intel Mac I haven't been using it but instead open a file that may need a little extra help from FM in a win XP version of CS5 under parallels and then reopen the saved.psd file back in 10.6.7 64 bit CS5 for final post production touches.
With regard to Rosetta, I'm not familiar with it after only transferring to Mac a short time ago; how is it installed etc to allow the running of FM in mac CS5? I too have emailed Focus Magic numerous times about a mac or even windows 64 bit version and get the same answer, the latest was only about a month ago. I prefer it for adjustments involving a little motion blur best or all sharpening plugins. Maybe the question I should ask is if I install Rosetta, will CS5 still run in 64 bit mode?