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Plankofwoood
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how to enlarge digital photos without pixulation ?

Aug 19, 2012 7:57 AM

enlarging digital image without pixulation

 
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 19, 2012 9:59 AM   in reply to Plankofwoood

    It's mathematically impossible. Where there was nothing, there can be nothing. Any enlargement process is causing loss of information because the algorithm has to "invent" (extrapolate) non-existant info. Only the quality of the algorithms/ techniques vary and with respect to the medium an image is shown/ printed on and from what distance it is being watched, one may be more forgiving than the other, but anything beyond 200% is just insane. The common consensus is that images can be scaled by about 130% before they degrade in quality and that is that.

     

    Mylenium

     
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  • Noel Carboni
    21,021 posts
    Dec 23, 2006
    Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 19, 2012 2:58 PM   in reply to Plankofwoood

    What do you mean by "pixulation".  That's not a term as spelled and is inexact at best in the most likely possible correct spelling.

     

    Normal Photoshop image size enlargement normally uses a technique of interpolation called "Bicubic" resampling, which creates a larger but fuzzy image based on the original, and normally you do not see much evidence of the original pixels in the result.  It's just fuzzier.

     

    There are some very sophisticated resampling tools available that can augment Photoshop's capabilities that can yield a better looking result, by attempting to follow lines and edges and keep them sharp.  Two such tools, as an example, are OnOne Software's Perfect Resize 7 and Alien Skin's Blow Up 3.

     

    Perhaps you'd be willing to share what it is you're trying to accomplish, then we could give you more specific information about how best to accomplish it.

     

    -Noel

     
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 19, 2012 11:33 PM   in reply to Plankofwoood

    The previous posters already gave a good overview of the issue in general.

    But could you post a (segment of an) image and its upscaled result and the exact settings you used to achieve it so that we know what exactly you are talking about?

     
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 20, 2012 4:59 PM   in reply to Noel Carboni

    Pixelation beats fuzzier any day !

     
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 20, 2012 6:30 PM   in reply to Plankofwoood

    If you absolutely need to blow something small up and that's the only option, the graphics data simply is not there.  It doesn't exist.  However, like I said, if that's what you absolutely need to do, you can artifically recreate the inbetween pixels with Photoshop's best estimation.  Technically it does do that if you enlarge it in the first place but it looks bad.  So, do a noise reduction filter at a high strength but high detail preservation and no color change.  Then apply a 0.5 pixle gaussian blur to the image if it doesn't look good enough yet.  Then artificially increase the sharpness with the various sharpening filters available.

     

    I wouldn't call the end result "good" but it's better than a simple upsample.

     
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  • Currently Being Moderated
    Aug 20, 2012 11:15 PM   in reply to gbotour

    Pixelation beats fuzzier any day !

    I don’t fully agree with that opinion.

     

    In any case the OP has not yet povided a lot of information and it seems conceivable that for some purposes (depending on final size, viewing distance etc.) the upsampling needs may not be too steep.

     
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