This may seem very basic to a number of you out there, but tell me, how can one enlarge (for printing) a very small original (digital or conventional) photograph and still maintain clarity and sharpness of image without having the enlarged pixel appearance make the print unusable, as the pixels then look like building bricks? Any tips welcome, particularly if I can resolve this without investing in hugely-expensive photo correction software! Thank you in advance, Brian S.
By: Hatton - 28th February 2006 at 09:26
Scans can cost around $10-500 per original depending on your required resolution. With drum scanners you can get as high as 5000-11,000 dpi.
i.e. enough for any size enlargements
true enough but if it is 35mm you are scanning from then there is a point where you have to consider how grainy you want the image to be.
By: bms44 - 4th February 2006 at 15:50
Thank you all for taking the time to reply to my query; apologies for the delay in replying, I haven’t accessed the forum since last visit.
In the interim, however, my son has since told me of the difficulties, nay, impossibilities of enlarging digital thumbnails, some 130 x 95 pixels, to a decent and still sharp image, particularly without access to the original photographic negative, print, or a digital image. It would seem my idea of converting a thumbnail image (of outstanding clarity) to a printable 10″ x 8″ is just not on!
By: hallo84 - 3rd February 2006 at 02:55
With film you can enlarge optically with the help of your film developer unless you have the equipement to process yourself…
You can also have your film professionally scanned with a dedicated digital film scanners or profession drum scanners. I don’t generally recommend people to rush out and buy one because they are very complicated to operate and require a lot of tweeking to get the results you are looking for.
Having the films scanned for you saves you alot of the trouble and a fortune too.
Scans can cost around $10-500 per original depending on your required resolution. With drum scanners you can get as high as 5000-11,000 dpi.
i.e. enough for any size enlargements
If you have taken pics with a low resolution digital camera then I’m sorry to say there is not much help I can give you. You can try enlarging with Photoshop by extrapolation with different plug-ins you get different resuls but these cost a lot of money to buy and don’t work very well. Simply said it creats more pixels from your original by a process guessing and estimation of surrounding shades. Until now I have yet to see one that works to enlarge something by 200% and give acceptable results.
By: Papa Lima - 3rd February 2006 at 00:37
If it’s a conventional print or negative, scan it at the highest resolution you can – e.g. 600 or 1200 dpi if your computer can handle it.
If it’s digital, there’s no remedy really.
I believe Photoshop Elements is not hugely expensive, by the way, and enables a geat deal of correction to be done, although I personally use Photoshop 7 itself, which was expensive! Even that should come down in price as it gets older.
By: tenthije - 29th January 2006 at 14:33
How large is the original (in pixels and dpi) and how large do you want it to be? After all, there are limits to how far something can be enlarged without making it horrible.
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January 29, 2006 at 8:58 am