Source:www.jimippolito.com

Despite auto focus we all get the occasional out of focus picture because nothing is perfect.

Because you only pay for what you print, and you only print what you want, you can take several shots of everything with your digital camera, or can you?

Sometimes the moment is fleeting and you only get one chance, and if the picture is out of focus, you're out of luck, or are you?

Well, sometimes a picture is so out of focus that it's beyond help, but if it's just slightly off, you can sharpen it up with a variety of programs, primarily adobe photoshop.

You don't have to own the latest full-blown version of Photoshop in order to achieve acceptable, amateur results. The above pair of photos shows before, and after I manipulated my muffed shot, yes I took the picture by holding the camera as far as I could stretch.

I used "Photoshop Elements 2.0", which was included with my Kodak P880 digital camera.

Now, I don't think the results are prize winning, but it did yield a better, at least somewhat acceptable photo, if kept to a small size.

I used the "Unsharp Mask" option under "Filters" --- "Sharpen", which allowed me to adjust the 3 parameters used in the process. I found that option to be better than the automated choices.

Now don't be intimidated, it's much easier than you think, and you can undo your attempt and start over as many times as you want, and always keep the original file saved in a separate folder, as I always advise.

To make this easy here's the link to a great video tutorial that will walk you through this easy process.

Now, why did my picture get screwed up to begin with? I hate flash, and thought there was enough available light for a good picture. There wasn't, and the auto focus couldn't zero in properly. I didn't take any back up shots because we were at a party, and the food was coming, and we were hungry.