Detect which image is sharper

Question

I\'m looking for a way to detect which of two (similar) images is sharper.

I\'m thinking this could be using some measure of overall sharpness and generating a score

Answer 1

Simple practical approach would be to use edge detection (more edges == sharper image).

Quick and dirty hands-on using PHP GD

function getBlurAmount($image) {
    $size = getimagesize($image);
    $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($image);
    imagefilter($image, IMG_FILTER_EDGEDETECT);    
    $blur = 0;
    for ($x = 0; $x < $size[0]; $x++) {
        for ($y = 0; $y < $size[1]; $y++) {
            $blur += imagecolorat($image, $x, $y) & 0xFF;
        }
    }
    return $blur;
}

$e1 = getBlurAmount('http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Jonquil_flowers_at_f32.jpg/800px-Jonquil_flowers_at_f32.jpg');
$e2 = getBlurAmount('http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Jonquil_flowers_at_f5.jpg/800px-Jonquil_flowers_at_f5.jpg');

echo "Relative blur amount: first image " . $e1 / min($e1, $e2) . ", second image " . $e2 / min($e1, $e2);

(image with less blur is sharper) More efficient approach would be to detect edges in your code, using Sobel operator. PHP example (rewriting in C++ should give huge performance boost I guess).