how do i deblur a license plate [Locked - start new thread if you want help]

Sorry guys, I had to sign in to reply. Here is the picture which I'm trying to get the license plate number.

While it may be possible to recover very little data back by working with a picture that has already been blurred, it may sometimes prove to be a redundant effort.

When you blur an image that is raster (JPG or similar), you intentionally remove the data from that area of the picture. Remember, JPG is a lossy file format - unless you're in an advanced setup where you have a version tracking application to keep copies of your files historically.

Photoshop or any image processing software for that matter works with data that is available to it on canvas. In your case, with a picture that has a blur applied to an area within it, Photoshop cannot process the area to bring back the pixels that were 'blurred' earlier.

Smart Sharpen can remove blur - but it depends on the amount of blur that was originally applied to the picture. Photoshop developers are yet to build AI into it!

Hi there -

It's extremeley difficult to reverse a blur, expecially one that intentionally hides something like a license plate.

Most tutorials that I found online deal with sharpening slightly blurred photos using the smart sharpen filter, which you can access by going to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. When I tried using this method on an extremely blurred photo, I got very sub-par results. It might be worth a try, but not necessarily a perfect solution.

Your issue is probably better suited for the general Photoshop forum. The folks over there have many years of experience with Photoshop and may have a solution for you. You can find the forum here: http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop/general