Yes this is yet a new sharpening plugin. We think it is a nice tool if you want to pull out more detail and/or want to sharpen selectively.

Focus Fixer by Fixer Labs

The use of Focus Fixer is actually pretty simple. The only danger we see is that you can easily over sharpen the result. That is why we use Focus Fixer on a different layer.

Here is a sample session on an image with lots of fine details:

Fish Bone Gravel (Canon 1Ds + Canon 100mm Macro)

Here is a detail crop before the use of Focus Fixer:

just slightly sharpened in the raw converter

and the resulting image after sharpening:

after using Focus Fixer

As you can see a nice result. We used the settings shown in our screen shot. Focus Fixer claims to use some info from the camera and lens if it can detect the info from EXIF information. We have no idea how much this contributes to the really good result.

Selective Sharpening

Our image has one problem area in terms of DOF (depth of field) as the DOF with a Macro lens is always very shallow:

Soft due to lack of DOF

Here is what we do. We select an area:

Selection

Feather it (20-30 in this case) and save the selection. Now we sharpen again much stronger with Focus Fixer in yet a new layer and apply the selection as a layer mask (if you want to learn more about layers and layer masks check out our DOP2000 e-book).

As a result we have only sharpened the selected area:

stronger sharpened area

Although this is a technique you can use with other sharpening tools too we find that Focus Fixer does a very nice job to correct out of focus segments of your photos.

Focus Fixer is working somehow slow but worth the wait.

Highly Recommended

Because we like the result we are now also an affiliate of Fixer Labs. You can buy Focus Fixer here.