Ridding pixelation from stretched images

[Dustman]

I googled around but couldn't really find anything.

Does anyone know of a program where I can resize images while, to some extent avoid pixelation or clear it up for a clearer blown up image? I'm not all that much of a photoshoper, but surely theres an easy way?

 

[killmoms]

You can't create data where there isn't any. About the best you can hope for is blurriness upon scaling up, via bicubic resampling. You can try to unsharp mask after that to regain some edge detail, at the cost of ringing and increased noise.

Really, the solution is to "take a large enough image that you don't have to scale up in the first place" I'm afraid. That movie magic of "image enhancement" is pretty much fantasy.

 

[Dustman]

You can't create data where there isn't any. About the best you can hope for is blurriness upon scaling up, via bicubic resampling. You can try to unsharp mask after that to regain some edge detail, at the cost of ringing and increased noise.

Really, the solution is to "take a large enough image that you don't have to scale up in the first place" I'm afraid. That movie magic of "image enhancement" is pretty much fantasy.

I knew this in the back of my head, but I figured I'd ask incase I was missing out on something. Thank you for the quick response.

 

[CanadaRAM]

There are programs that can help 'fake' it better. Genuine Fractals is one of them http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2

The other thing you can do in Photoshop is to increase the resolution in a number of small steps, rather than all at one go. That creates generally fewer visible artifacts.

If you still have too much pixelization, take the resolution up about 2 x what you are aiming for, and apply a small amount of blur, or use the dust and scratches filter. Then scale it back down to your destination resolution.

Whatever you do, DO NOT apply Sharpen or unsharp mask filters at the beginning of the process! you will only magnify the sharpening artifacts. Sharpening should be done, if at all, as the very last step.

 

[Macky-Mac]

there are some programs written to do what you want. You can find their names read comments about them in this earlier thread; link

 

[sblasl]

Checkout PhotoZoom Pro 2. Works great.

http://www.benvista.com/main/content/content.php?page=ourproducts&section=photozoompro_1

 

[SolracSelbor]

There are programs that can help 'fake' it better. Genuine Fractals is one of them http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2

The other thing you can do in Photoshop is to increase the resolution in a number of small steps, rather than all at one go. That creates generally fewer visible artifacts.

If you still have too much pixelization, take the resolution up about 2 x what you are aiming for, and apply a small amount of blur, or use the dust and scratches filter. Then scale it back down to your destination resolution.

Whatever you do, DO NOT apply Sharpen or unsharp mask filters at the beginning of the process! you will only magnify the sharpening artifacts. Sharpening should be done, if at all, as the very last step.

Very cool software!