Enlarging pictures with minimum jagged edge?

awdrifter

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Aug 29, 2004
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Is there a way to for example enlarge a 800x600 picture to 1680x1050 (I know the ratio is off, I'll crop if needed) without too much jagged edge? I've found a wallpaper at 800x600 and it looks real bad on my screen when stretched to 1680x1050. Thanks.

Edit: Just noticed I should've posted this in the Photoshop forum, mods please move this, thanks.
 
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I don't know that you'll find any way around it enlarging a picture that much. Some of the higher-end photo-editing software does a better job though. Photoshop has some different settings you can mess with when you enlarge or shrink a picture that might improve the quality.
 
I knew what was coming when I saw the thread title.....:lol:

Seriously though:

In Photoshop, converting a layer to a Smart Object before enlarging it really helps, but the result all depends on the content and how big you need to go.

When working with a Smart Object, make the canvas bigger and then resize the Smart Object manually with the transform options instead of using Image >> Image Resize
 
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Just gotta make sure to use the right resize algorithm.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm not looking for super zoom, I'm just looking to enlarge the picture a bit. I tried all the resized option in PS, but it still looks horrible. Here's the original picture, if someone could enlarge it to 1680x1050 with minimal jagged edge please help (I know the ratio is wrong, just crop the top and bottom). Thanks in advance.

Original pic.
http://img88.imageshack.**/img88/3544/airbg8.png
 
Won't really work, the size you want has about 4x as many pixels, there's no magical way, aka superzoom, for this type of stuff.

Sometimes, depending on image content, when upsizing things just get blurry which can be helped a bit by unsharp mask. The size you want this 800px image in, that technique doesn't really help, if anything it makes it worse.
 
I gave it a shot and most of the image looks ok when enlarged, but some parts are already jagged (such as the hair) so of course it's gonna get worse.
 
Generally, it's best to use the "Bicubic Smoother" resizing algorithm for upsizing pictures. Don't know if it'd work so well here though.
 


That's my 2 min attempt (working on a 1280x1024 screen atm, image was cropped :p)

That looks a lot better than my attempts, thanks.
 
Genuine fractals is the way to get the best results, but if you can't be arsed to pay for that, use photoshop bicubic sharper and incrementally increase size to 109% untill you get the res you want.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm acquiring that plug-in now, hopefully it'll give better result.
 
Turing moment this, SuperZoom works! :D
 

Kind of takes it in a different direction, but looks cool :)

Not the dimensions you were going for though, is it awdrifter?
 
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