Luckily, the iPhone has several apps that help you fix blurry pictures, whether you’ve clicked them on iPhone or other phone. Several amateur and professional photographers use these apps to fix the blurry photos on iOS or iPadOS. These best apps are also available on Android. Let’s begin.
Tips to Avoid Blurry Pictures on iPhone
The best way to avoid blurry pictures on iPhone is to reshoot them. If that’s not possible, you may try reshooting them using a gimbal with OIS support. Or you can rest your elbows on a surface or a wall for steady support. The new iPhone 13 series and later models feature photography styles that you can use to make the best of your iPhone’s camera. Using these styles, you can click pictures that come close to the levels you want instead of relying on third-party apps.
How Much Blur Can You Remove
You need to understand that though these mobile apps are powerful, there is a limit. You can remove blur from an image only up to a certain extent. Even if you’ve shot the image in DNG or RAW format, it’s difficult to make it clear. That’s why it’s a good practice to click multiple picture while taking a proper support or using a gimbal. If the picture is completely blurred and is difficult to figure subject, you can’t fix it with satisfying results using mobile apps. While you may attempt to fix pictures a bit, they’ll never look as crisp as a properly shot photo. The interface of these apps can be a bit challenging initially, but you can get used to it. While most offer a free version with limited features, you may get the paid version to unlock full potential of these apps on your device. Besides, you can make best of the different aperture and lenses on your iPhone. These apps have been cherry-picked and none of them have annoying, pesky ads to distract you from fixing blurry images.
1. Snapseed
Snapseed is one of the top free apps since it’s quite capable and offers enough tools to manipulate or fix errors in your pictures. It’s our first recommendation since it packs enough options and presets to fix the little errors in your photos and also change their look. Here is the original picture that we will try and bring in to more focus, removing the blur as much as possible. Open the picture in Snapseed and tap on the Tools button. That is where all the editing tools are housed. Select the Details option. There are two options that we can use to remove the blur. One is Structure and the other is Sharpening. I would recommend you to use Sharpening first to enhance the edges and details. Use your finger anywhere to swipe from left to right to increase sharpness. Now tap the menu icon to select Structure to bring back the details. You need to play around with these values a little to understand how they affect various aspects of the image. Once you are satisfied, tap the checkmark button to save the changes. Check both the pictures side by side. Facial features are more prominent, and color has returned somewhat. You can also try and increase contrast to highlight features a little more. Download Snapseed
2. VSCO
For more technical edits and professional-grade tools, you’ll need to try out the acclaimed VSCO app to show off your flair for photography. Besides making quick macro changes, you can adjust settings like saturation, white balance, clarity, tweak gain filter, etc. The presets and filters are easy to use. Tap on the ‘+’ icon to import all or any picture into VSCO that you want to unblur and then tap the menu icon at the bottom to start editing. Some photo editing apps like VSCO call Structure as Clarity. Scroll a little to find Sharpen tool and begin adjusting the slider to edit the picture. Tap on the checkmark icon when done and repeat the same process using Clarity tool now. Besides that, you can also try to increase the contrast and exposure to make it a bit clearer. Next, head to the Grain settings to make it look a bit filtered look. This is only optional if you want include some artistic touch to your photos. Of course, don’t go overboard or it’ll make the picture covered with dust. Do you also think that VSCO did a better job at unblurring the photos than Snapseed? It’ll take you a couple of tries and adjustments to get the levels right. Download VSCO
3. Adobe Lightroom
Lightroom is a go-to app for several for image editing for it lets you enjoy more manual control over the colors and the lighting. The free version will offer you only limited access to presets and other editing features. You can make the best of it with Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. With Lightroom, you’ll need to learn and remember all the technical terms for edits you’ll make to the photo. Open the image in the app and tap on Effects tab to find Clarity and Dehaze option. We will only use Clarity for now. After that, you’ll need to use the Sharpening tool under the Detail tab. Return to Effects and try Dehaze. As the name suggests, it will remove atmospheric haze from the image. More suitable for pictures clicked outdoor to remove unwanted haze like fog or pollution. However, it can also help with blurry pictures clicked inside. Apart from that, you’ll need to check out Radius settings and bump it to a higher value to adjust the sharpness of pixels in your photo. Besides that, you can also try tweaking the Exposure setting for the picture to make it more brighter and easily visible. Download Adobe Lightroom
4. Prisma
Prisma is the first AI-powered photo editor that makes editing pictures easy and fun. Not focusing on Prisma’s other features and filters, let’s open the app and see what we can do. Once the image is open in Prisma, scroll a little to find the Sharpen tool. Move the slider to the right. There is no Structure or Clarity tool in Prisma, but I used Contrast a little to highlight the features and remove extra light. Looks better? Download Prisma
Get Everything in Focus
As you must have noticed, removing blur from pictures on an iPhone is easy. However, if you have photo carry blur as much as the example I used in this guide, then don’t expect magic out of any of the apps. However, they’ll deliver results good enough for you to make collages and share the images on social media. That said, you may opt for the pro version of the apps if you tend to edit images on your iPhone often, besides making little tweaks. The best tip to avoid blur is to use a tripod or use support while clicking images. And if the picture is still blurred, then you can try out the apps mentioned above to fix that blur.
