Cool Cab – Hold It Right There!

I continue to be blown away by what modern AI-powered processing tools can do with early digital photos. This photo was taken from the back of a very jittery 1950s Ford Consul, by someone unfamiliar with my camera, in fading light which meant a 1/6s exposure time but still a high ISO. The result was a decent memory shot of an entertaining ride in an ancient Cuban cab, but it was a bit shaky, to say the least.

Mainly for my amusement I decided to see what would happen using the latest tools. First I re-processed the original RAW file with Capture One, to adjust the aspect ratio, lift the shadows and fix the blown highlights. Then I fed it through Topaz Sharpen AI in Stabilise mode, to reduce the effects of camera, photographer and platform (1950s Ford Console) shake. This produced an image which was much sharper, but a bit noisy. Finally I passed that image through Topaz Denoise AI, with a relatively low noise reduction setting (just 15%) but moderate sharpening. That seemed to be the best compromise to retain the original textures but remove the noise.

The result is above. It’s not only removed the blurring of my face & glasses, but also sharpened the lines of the scenery passing and the rain on the windscreen. I think it keeps the feel of the original, but is a bit less apologetic. What do you think?