Web Site With Directions For Up Sampling?

[Goddess_of_Go]

Not too long ago someone asked about up sampling a small photo to make it larger. The person who responded to that request gave a link to a web site which suggested a method of up sampling 105% or 110% multiple times to achieve a better result than if you were to, for instance, try to upsample 200% all at once.

I have heard that it is a bad idea to try to up sample more than 150%, but perhaps this gradual approach yields good enough results.

The situation I find myself in is that I have some family photos that were small to begin with and were scanned at 200 ppi. I would have scanned them at 600 ppi, but I wasn't the one who scanned them. I am stuck with the 200 ppi images, and trying to make something of them.

I know there is software that will enlarge images for you, and I might purchase it, but I wanted to try the method on the web site to see how good a job it does.

Unfortunately I can't find the original post even though I have tried to find it using a variety of search terms.

If the person who responded previously could repost that URL I would be very appreciative. Thanks in advance.

Terri

[frank abramonte]

Terri, is this what your looking for?
There is a software out there that does a great job of upsampling, perhaps you can do a search for it.
This may be it
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/resolution/gr/smartscale.htm


http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8151&highlight=upsample

[Goddess_of_Go]

Frank,

I think your second link is the original post I was referring to. Thanks for the information.

The plugin from the first link looks interesting.

I was thinking of getting the onOne software for Elements. I got a $20.00 off coupon for it when I bought Photoshop Elements 6 a few months ago. So that makes it pretty cheap.

But I recently bought Photoshop CS3, which I like better than Elements, but the onOne software is more expensive for Photoshop, so I am not sure yet which one I will purchase.

Terri

[Goddess_of_Go]

Maybe that second link wasn't the original post because it doesn't provide an outside link to another web page, but it does lead me to believe that above version 3 there is no need to up sample in stages. I suppose the program itself probably does it in stages without us knowing about it and only shows us the final result.

I think the post I was referring to lead to information on about.com, but I am just going to try to up sample 200% and see what happens. It isn't like I am trying to make a terribly dramatic increase in size. I know better than that.

Edit: I found this on about.com

http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/resolution/a/increasingres.htm

It has a image editor link along the left which can be tried for free so I might download it if it comes for the Mac.

Terri

[frank abramonte]

Terri, there's no reason why you can't up sample in Elements and then open and work on the image in C3.
Once you've captured the additional color information it can be used in either editing program. I do it all the time, going between Elements and CS2.

Plenty about up sampling here:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=how+to+upsample+in+photoshop&fr=yfp-t-501-s&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

[Goddess_of_Go]

Good point. If it is less expensive to get a plug in that will up sample in Elements I don't have to work with the image there later. Good point.

Terri

[Goddess_of_Go]

Following one of the links from your search query I came upon an article in PC Magazine which encouraged me to up sample by 110% multiple times. I decided to try it.

I took one of my images and upsampled it six times at 110%. I also up sampled it once at 200%. The first image was a little smaller than the second one. Six times wasn't enough to match the size. But I was able to get a good idea of whether or not the first method yielded superior results.

Their was no perceivable improvement. The image resizing plug ins must do a much better job or they wouldn't sell. I might try one, but certainly not the $200.00 one.

Terri

[frank abramonte]

I don't know whether this will work, but here is a suggestion:

Tape a photo to a wall and and light it with no glares. With your camera parallel to the photo (to eliminate distortion) make a copy of it. You will get a high resolution of the photo. Bring it into CS3 and see if you have any more detail.
I think this will be better than up sampling, since the program in not interpreting the missing pixels.
Post back with your results

[Goddess_of_Go]

That would be a good idea if I had the original photograph. But if I had the original photograph I could just scan it at 600 ppi.

Wouldn't a photograph of a printout of the 200 ppi scanned image have no better image quality than the 200 ppi scan, or am I missing something?

Terri

[frank abramonte]

I figure that when you enlarge it the software will interpret the missing pixels.
It will read 2 or more pixels and decide what value is missing and create it.

You should be able to get a pretty good print at 200 dpi. Try a couple of prints until you get one that has as much detail as possible. Make you adjustments before printing them.
The only thing I don't know is whether printing it same size verses printing it at 200 % would give you a print which would not have to be enlarged as much.

You could try one same size and one at 200%. Shoot them and enlarge digitally and see what the difference is.
You will have a second opportunity to adjust the photographs before the final printing.

If you photograph it the color data will be in the document and will be at higher resolution, thereby making it better to enlarge it. It would not have been generated by the software.

Shooting the print would be the same as if you were scanning the photo to a higher dpi.

I think it's worth a try.

We could use some input from some of the contributing photographers.

[genevh]

What are the actual dimensions of the photos you want to enlarge and how large do you want to make them?

And then I did some looking in my PSE5 and CS3 books from Scott Kelby, and the technique he describes he says he picked up from Vincent Vercase. And then I found this video (http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=343) by Matt Kloskowski, "Resizing Made Easy in CS3" which goes over the same steps in Scott's books. The difference, though, is that Matt shows how CS3 makes recomendations for which resampling method to use and he sticks with those. Scott, on the other hand, takes his cue from Vincent Vercase and uses Bicubic Sharper for enlarging and swears by it. I guess the proof would be in doing it yourself and seeing which one you like better.

His tutorials for resizing are in his "The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers" pages 168-170. The same tutorial is also in Scott's "The Photoshop Elements 5 Book for Digital Photographers" on pages 107-108. They are essentially the same. He doesn't use the 10% rule either, just goes straight to the size he wants.

I also found a video that says you can upsize in ACR also. It can be found here (http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=401).

[Goddess_of_Go]

Frank,

I appreciate your creative solution, but I only have a 3.1 megapixel really old camera, and I would not be able to get near enough to the photograph to still have it in focus. Therefore any photograph I take of a print of a 200 ppi scan is likely to be much worse than the scan itself. If I had a digital SLR, a macro lens, and a tripod I might be in business.

The person who scanned the photo at 200 ppi still has the photo. They may be willing to scan it again for me at 600 ppi if I ask nicely and explain why I want them to do so. They live about thirty minutes away so I could run over with a flash drive to get it if the file is too large to email.

And there is always the onOne software too.

Terri

[elwoodsusanm]

"I also found a video that says you can upsize in ACR also"
I had a look at this video but it was for Photoshop - I only have PSE5:(

[Goddess_of_Go]

Gene,

There is more than one photo, and they are all fairly small. The smallest one is 1.78 inches by 2.11 inches at 200 ppi. If I could get it up to six inches in the widest dimension I would be thrilled. That would be a little less than 300% of it's actual size.

Thanks for the references to the video and the book.

I watched the video, and will give Matt's method a try.

I happen to own the Scott Kelby book you referred me to. So I will also try that method.

Since I have the full version of Photoshop it should not be difficult to follow along with these resources.

the onOne software is going to be my last resort.

Terri

[Goddess_of_Go]

Gene,

I tried the method in the Scott Kelby book. It worked well. What I discovered when doing it is that the background came out really well and the subjects are a little blurry, but I think that was the fault of the original photographer. If the background came out as well as it did the subjects would have come out just as well if they had been in proper focus in the first place.

So I will definitely use this method again.

In the book Scott took at photograph with height of about 14" to a height of about 36" which was only about a 250% increase. 36 inches sounds impressive, but given that the image started at 14 inches it isn't unreasonable.

I did push my image from two inches to six inches and sampled up to 360 as he suggested and used the bicubic sharper setting.

As he says, this flies in the face of what we have been told about resampling images, but it does a decent job.

I think I will try it with some other small images that are in focus to being with.

My old cameras show ppi as 72 by default, whereas his camera apparently shows ppi as 240. I guess standards have changed in recent years. If I wanted to use a 72 ppi image I suppose it would make sense to change the resolution without resampling just to get the ppi consistent with his starting point.

Terri

[frank abramonte]

"I tried the method in the Scott Kelby book. It worked well. What I discovered when doing it is that the background came out really well and the subjects are a little blurry"

Terri, when up sampling a flat color background (or a background that your not too concerned about) you have no problem because all the pixels have the same value, or it won't be noticed.
The problem is when your working with peoples faces which have subtle changes. The software can't possibly create the correct pixel to bracket these subtle changes, therefore you will get distortion and blurriness.

You have the best and final answer, get the photos rescanned.
If they will rescan them have them scanned at either 300 or 600 to the final size you will use. This will give you maximum latitude.
Good luck.

[Goddess_of_Go]

Frank,

Thanks for the detail on the ppi for the scan. I will try to get 600.

So it wasn't necessarily out of focus to begin with.

I knew there was a good reason I like shooting things instead of people.

Terri

[genevh]

My old cameras show ppi as 72 by default, whereas his camera apparently shows ppi as 240. I guess standards have changed in recent years. If I wanted to use a 72 ppi image I suppose it would make sense to change the resolution without resampling just to get the ppi consistent with his starting point.
The 72 ppi isn't a big deal upon opening a picture. If you look at the actual dimensions (WxH in inches) you'll probably see a pretty good sized picture there. Changing to 240 ppi or even 300 ppi without resampling will reduce that size by a factor of 3 or 4. The biggest difference in those numbers comes in when you print. You wouldn't want to be printing at 72 ppi.

And shooting people is fun. Especially when you're trying for those candids and catch them unawares. Those are some of my best shots. But then, I can be evil at times. :twisted:

[DMurray407]

I have OnOne for Elements and the enlargement feature works well. I'm not sure where the up sampling should fall in the workflow, though. Acually, I really like the "make it better" feature of the OnOne software for when I'm in a hurry, too. It's well worth the investment. I have PSCS3 and fall back on some of my elements only plugins quite often.