AI Will End Accidentally Blurred Photographs In The Next 2 Years. Maybe sooner.

"In these days of instant electronic gratification, I often fid myself feelign ike a dinosaur, albeit a self-righteous one." These words were written by the original Casual Observer, Peter Moore, in the June 1988 issue of Modern Photography magazine, and are even more true today. We're in the early days of the AI era, and many of us feel like instant dinosaurs because we would rather make our own decisions and get it right in-camera, thank you very much.

That said, I have something positive to say about AI and photography, and a prediction: You will soon be able to sharpen your accidentlally blurry, shaky photos. In fact, I predict cameras will soon be able to detect when you’ve accidentally shaken a photo or there's subject blur (yes, it’s still possible to shake with an camera that has anti-shake technology built in) or you accidentally missed your focus target, sharpen it in a fraction of a second. AI will fix your mess without you even knowing you made one.

I'm not saying photographers shouldn't be careful. Choose the right settings to avoid shake or motion. Learn to focus your camera; it's not difficult. But in the real world--especially for the myriads of casual photographers who don't have the training to get it right, sharpening focus by artificial means can be a life-saver. 

I am also in the business of restoring old photos, and many of those are blurred. I may have a third-generation copy where the quality has degraded. AI-based blur correction may also help with these cases.

There are many people in the photo industry who think AI represents the end of civilization. It certainly has serious issues when it comes to showing the providence of images used for machine learning, giving original content creators credit and/or compensation, etc. But as a tool AI is also providing some impressive tools for both pro and amateur photographers. And today, I’m happy to share the prediction that in the not too distant future, AI will help to eliminate accidentally blurred photos.

I give it two years.

A sample of an AI-unblurred photo from Media.io's AI Image Sharpener, from their web site. I just downloaded the software to test on my own images. I'll post the results soon.

Actually, the technology is already here, but fine-tuning its effectiveness and integrating it into existing software and hardware is still in the Beta phase. Akvis Refocus AI, Vance AI, Image Sharpener by Media IO, and Neural.Love offer various approaches to un-doing camera shake or motion blur,and correcting a variety of focusing errors. Some work in full resolution, others web only; some are available as stand-alone applications, while others are Photoshop or Lightroom plug-ins. 

And while all promise blur relief, the results vary, often depending on the original. But they have made a lot of progress in a short time. 

Will camera manufacurers build AI-based unblurring tech into their software, just as many added optical and/or digital image stabilization as a standard feature over the last 20 years? I'm certain smart phone makers will add this capability sooner than later; will camera makers lag behind or wil they get in front of the trend? Will Adobe swallow up one of the above-mentioned companies and incorporate the tech into all flavors of Photoshop? I believe these will bring unfocus into focus. And it will happen soon.

So, my prediction of two years until accidental blur is eliminated might be a bit overly cautious. It will probably happen sooner. Check in with me in May 2026, and let’s see what the state of the technology is by then.