FocusFixer, TrueBlur, NoiseFixer and ShadowFixer are all Photoshop plug-ins by FixerLabs, the British developer of SizeFixer XL. Two of these plug-ins take the same approach as SizeFixer: they depend on your camera for correcting the image.

FocusFixer will correct lens-typical focus problems. It will sharpen an image but not like for example Sharpener Pro. It will actually improve focus, and in a much better way than Unsharp Mask or even Smart Sharpen will do. The reason for FocusFixer’s results is called LensFIT.

LensFIT builds a model of the camera’s optics that describes how an image is softened or blurred. Armed with that information FocusFixer is able to reverse the softening. This information is also used by SizeFixer and TrueBlur.

Some cameras provide all the information required by LensFIT in the EXIF data. These cameras will be supported whether they are on FixerLabs’ list of supported cameras or not. Many cameras do not supply all the information LensFIT requires to function. The extra information needed by LensFIT is available if you specify camera make and model.

I tried it with a Kodak P880, a camera which is too new to already figure in FocusFixer’s list. Nevertheless, I could get a sharper photo using FocusFixer with an image that I took in bad light conditions.

TrueBlur is another plug-in that uses your camera’s lens data but this time it will add blur. In fact, the Blur slider will blur your photo in the same way as your camera, just as if the region of the photo were outside the depth-of-field of the photo.

ShadowFixer is a third plug-in which will make your shadow areas better. However, I couldn’t see much difference between using this filter and Photoshop’s Shadow-Highlight adjustment.

The last filter, NoiseFixer will reduce digital noise (graininess or lumps) in your image. To use you first select an image or image region. The control panel will display four panels. The top two show the colour content (chrominance) and the grey content (luminance) of your photograph.

The lower two panels show the original image on the left and the result on the right. NoiseFixer is not camera-dependent. Since cameras differ there may be a need to adjust the colour noise more than the grey noise. NoiseFixer allows you to filter out the noise in either the colour or grey components independently.

The effects can be quite dramatic, without affecting the quality of the image overall.

Conclusion

FocusFixer and the three other filters are available in a FixerLabs bundle. The filters are of a very high quality, and they are unique in that they use your camera’s data to correct your photo.

A disadvantage of this approach is that new cameras are not always supported. However, FixerLabs does publish a list of explicitly supported cameras, so the best is to check before you buy.