Let's be honest: There have not been many features that have blown your socks off in Photoshop recently and for those who actually have to pay for the software themselves, the reasons that justify an upgrade have not been very compelling.

However, I predict that this is a feature that you will want -- one that you'll pay for -- if it works as Adobe promises.

Adobe recently demonstrated a deblurring feature for a future version of Photoshop. They did not say which version they are targeting, but it seemed a bit rough around the edges, so I would be cautious about speculating that it will be in CS6. The feature was integrated into Photoshop via a plug-in and can magically correct blurred images and come up with a sharp picture. Magic?
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© Adobe

Common sense tells us that if you screw up a picture, you screwed it up and especially if its blurred, your options to make it look better are very limited. How would Adobe be able to deblur a picture?

Adobe's approach is interesting - and quite compute-intensive. The analysis of the picture tries to trace the path a picture was blurred - it basically attempts to recreate your hand movement during the time a picture was taken, based on the blurring in the picture. Depending on the size of the picture, this process can consume some time, but the effect that Adobe presented on stage was breathtaking. In one example, the software even revealed a blurred phone number in a picture.

Adobe declined to confirm a release date of the feature. But even if it is just half as good as it worked in the demo, this feature will be reason enough for many Photoshop users to upgrade.

Video Demonstration