I was wondering if there was any photo management software out there that could auto detect and "rate" images on how in focus they are. This comes up for me quite commonly when i am looking through a large series of macro images of the same subject.
In a perfect world, Light Room (or whatever program) could highlight in focus and out of focus areas the same way that it detects burned out areas of an image. Also the algorithm I am hoping exists would be smart and would not be distracted by blurred backgrounds and only seeks that some sufficient area is in enough focus.
Anything like that out there?
As another thought for people talking about pictures being in focus on the wrong spot, and that camera focus models already look into this. Another large factor for a lack of clarity in a macro image is blur from camera movement. This damages all points on an image, and is not something the camera accounted for when focusing.
Answer
It's an interesting question. It's certainly possible for software to detect the parts of an image that is in focus, as it's the basis for focus-stacking software like Helicon Focus.
Focus stacking is a technique used by macro photographers. The depth of field in many macro shots is very shallow, so to extend this it's possible to take a set of photos of the subject, modifying the focal point in each one. Helicon Focus takes the stack of photos and detects the most in-focus parts of each image, and blends them together to produce a result where the entire subject is in focus. It's also possible to do this with some of the technology behind Hugin, but it's a bit more tricky to set up.
I think the difficulty in extending this for a general "in focus" check would be determining whether the subject is in focus - how do we automatically determine what the subject is? How much depth of field was required by the photographer?
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