How to enlarge an image without losing quality. How to increase the size of photos while keeping the original quality

At some point, you may have a question about how to enlarge a lossless photo for printing... Indeed, when an image is enlarged, resolution is lost, which will affect printing. I can suggest increasing the size of the cropped image using a product called Genuine Fractals 6... Since I had experience with Genuine Fractals in the past and used it for some projects, I decided to write a short article about professional enlargement of photographs for printing, and in addition to make a comparison between the enlargement tools - Photoshop and Genuine Fractals 6 Pro.

1. What size is suitable for printing?

One of the most asked questions by photographers who do not have very much experience in the printing process is how large can be printed from their DSLR digital camera. Traditionally, the rule is to divide the image width in pixels by 300 to get the best quality print size in inches. For example, if you're shooting with a Nikon D90, the image resolution will be 4.288 (width) x 2.848 (height). This literally means there are 4,288 horizontal pixels and 2,848 vertical pixels on the image sensor. If you multiply these numbers, you get 12,212,224 pixels, or 12.2 megapixels, the total number of pixels available on the sensor. So in the D90 case above, dividing 4.288 and 2.848 by 300 gives a print size of 14.3 x 9.5 inches. Why do we divide by 300 and what does this number mean? This number represents "DPI" (dots per inch) or "PPI" (pixels per inch), and means how many dots / pixels per inch the printer will print on the paper. The higher the number of dots per square inch, the tighter and closer the dots will be, resulting in a smoother transition and less space between dots and ultimately less grain. 300 dpi gives magazine-quality print, and lower values \u200b\u200bbelow 150 give graininess and fuzziness in printed images.

With the above information in mind, how big can your Nikon D90 printout be? Now that you know what dots per inch means, the first question to ask is how good the print will be.

Take a look at the following table:

Nikon D90 12.2Mp 300 DPI (top quality) - 14.3 ″ x 9.5 ″

Nikon D90 12.2Mp 240 DPI (good quality) - 17.9 ″ x 11.9 ″

Nikon D90 12.2Mp 200 DPI (medium quality) - 21.4 ″ x 14.2 ″

Nikon D90 12.2Mp 150 DPI (low quality) - 28.6 ″ x 19 ″

If you want to capture the highest quality photo for publication in a magazine at 300 DPI, you could easily print a full-size 8 ″ x 10 ″ standard and even afford cropping to fit perfectly on the page, or print custom sizes to 14.3 ″ x 9.5 ″. Some professional photographers print at 240 DPI and find it good enough for the work they are selling, so you could go a little lower. However, quality below 240 DPI is unacceptable for photographers due to loss of quality and “blurriness” or “blurring” (if the image is resized incorrectly).

So does this mean that you are limited to such small prints taken with a DSLR? What if you want to hang your beautiful photo in a 24 "x 36" frame? This is where proper image resizing can help you achieve great results.

Printing a photo in the days of film was easy enough - photographers already knew the 35mm print size or medium format and it was easy to know what size a print would be without much loss of detail and sharpness. With the invention of digital photography, things are different now, sometimes more complicated with all this DPI / PPI language and resizing options with different algorithms. New advances in digital processing now enable much larger prints to be produced with minimal loss of quality and detail. Let's take a look at two of the most used enlargement methods used by professionals.

2. Enlarging images withAdobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular graphics program used to enlarge images. The tool for enlarging images in Photoshop is called Image Size and is available in the top navigation menu Image -\u003e Image Size. When you open your photo and go to Image Size, you will see something similar:

The original width and height indicate the size of the image loaded into Photoshop. In the example above, I took a 1024 x 768 photo and quadrupled it by changing the width to 4096 (the height changes automatically since I selected the Maintain Aspect Ratio option). As I have increased the size, the middle section indicates that if I print this photo at 240 DPI, I will get a size of 17.067 ″ x 12.8 ″. If I change the value from 240 to 300 DPI, the print settings are reduced to 13.653 ″ x 10.24 ″ while maintaining the same image size.

Let's move on to a real-world example and see what happens when you enlarge a photo using Photoshop. I have selected a picture of a bird that I took a little earlier this year:

Camera settings for NIKON D3S @ 300mm, ISO 1400, 1/1600, f / 7.1

It has a lot of detail and is very sharp, so this is a great example to test. This is how the image looks at 400% scale:

As you can see, it is "pixelated", which means that there are many squares in it. This is because the original image is composed of pixels, and when the size is increased, the only thing the computer can do is increase the number of pixels that make up one pixel. In the example above, approximately 4 pixels now represent a single pixel because the image is viewed at 400%, hence "pixelated". If you did the same for printing, it wouldn't look good with all those squares. To tackle this problem, Adobe has come up with several image interpolation algorithms that transform square pixels and provide a smooth transition for both increasing and decreasing image size. However, Adobe strongly recommends not increasing the size of the photo, as additional pixels are created by analyzing adjacent pixels and choosing a medium color for a smooth transition, which results in blurring of details. Take a look at the following image, which has been enlarged using Photoshop and the Bicubic (Smooth Gradients) interpolation algorithm:

As you can see, the pixel borders have disappeared and got a smooth transition. However, the borders are too smooth and the image has lost the sharpness that was present in the original image. It is not very noticeable when viewed from a distance, but when viewed very close, the lack of sharpness will be obvious. After increasing the size, you can manually add a bit of sharpness, but do this very carefully, as this manipulation can make the image look unnatural.

3. Enlarging images withGenuine Fractals 6

A fairly popular tool for increasing image size among photographers is OnOne Software's Genuine Fractals 6 Professional - an advanced software for professional photographers designed specifically for enlarging photos to very large and giant sizes. Compared to Photoshop, it has a more sophisticated algorithm that not only analyzes adjacent pixels, but does a decent job of preserving image sharpness and detail. This is how it looks:

Using Genuine Fractals 6 is very simple - all you have to do is enter new dimensions for the image, or select dimensions from the Document Size panel, and the program will automatically enlarge and crop it to the specified dimensions. For more control over the transitions, the program allows you to select the type of image using the "Texture Control" panel:

As you can see, I chose Lots of Detail because I wanted to keep as much detail as possible for the feathers and other areas. Here's how Genuine Fractals converted the image after I clicked Apply:

NIKON D3S @ 300mm, ISO 1400, 1/1600, f / 7.1

Now compare the enlarged image in Photoshop and Genuine Fractals 6 Pro:

Notice the abundance of blur in Photoshop (right) and the relatively well preserved details in Genuine Fractals (left). And this is without applying extra sharpness in Genuine Fractals!

4. Enlarging images withBenVista PhotoZoom Pro

Another software package that is very similar in functionality to Genuine Fractals is Benvista PhotoZoom Pro. This is what this product looks like:

And here's the same image processed in PhotoZoom:

NIKON D3S @ 300mm, ISO 1400, 1/1600, f / 7.1

Compared to Genuine Fractals:

BenVista PhotoZoom seems to retain sharpness slightly better than Genuine Fractals, especially where the feathers are. I used the patented “S-Spline Max” algorithm to get the above result and chose the “Photo-Detail” preset.

5. Conclusions

If you are thinking about printing your images in large format, then you don't have to be limited by the number of pixels in your camera sensor. As I showed above, you can enlarge images to the desired size using the tools and algorithms provided by different manufacturers. I'm sure there are other products on the market that can do the same thing, so definitely give them a try and see what works for you. If you are looking for professional quality prints, then you should consider purchasing such excellent tools as Genuine Fractals 6 Pro or BenVista PhotoZoom, which will allow you to make large-format prints while retaining details as much as possible.

You can increase the size of a photo online on the IMGonline website. How to increase the size of a photo (image, picture or drawing) online without losing quality:

Go to the site
Click "Select File"
Below, indicate how many times you want to enlarge the photo size
Even below, select the output image format and click "OK"

The size of the picture or drawing begins to increase. This process will take a few seconds, after which you can download the photo to your computer.

If you have a lot of different images in the cloud or on your PC, then at some point you will need to know how to change the size of a photo, image, drawing, picture. There are several ways to do this without losing quality:

Resize a picture or image in Photoshop
Resize photo online:
- With Optimizilla
- With TinyJPG
- With IMGonline

On the site imgonline.com.ua you can find out what size the image is. How to find out what size photo, pictures:

Go to the site
Click on the "Select File" button and then "OK" to determine the size of the image (photo, drawing or picture)

As a result, you will see the size of your file in pixels, megapixels and megabytes. And also, a fun bonus from the site is the total number of pixels.

If you are interested in changing the image size, while you want to know exactly what image characteristics you will receive at the output, then the IMGonline service is for you. That is, you do not need a program to resize the image, you can use a third-party site.

Resizing photos, pictures, images, drawings:

Go to the IMGonline website
Select the mode of operation (the site can change the size in centimeters, megapixels, percentages, pixels and megabytes, pixels are selected by default)
Select your image
Enter the desired image dimensions, change additional settings if needed
Click OK
Click "Open processed image" to check the correctness of the operation
If everything suits you, click "Download the selected image" and save your thumbnail

Now you know how to avoid warping when resizing an image. As you can see, it is not at all difficult to reduce the size of a picture online and all operations take about a minute.

To reduce the size of a photo, image, picture or drawing without losing quality, use the Optimizilla website. How can I zoom out an image, photo or picture on this site? You need to either click the "Load" button and specify the images you want, or just drag them onto the gray background under the buttons.

Immediately after uploading images, they will be automatically compressed, details of compression can be seen below.

As you can see, the original weighed 204 KB, after compression the picture began to weigh 60 KB, the picture was compressed by 71%, and the picture quality remained the same! To save a compressed image to your computer:

Click on the "Download" button below the image
Specify the path to save

Have you managed to reduce the size of the photo?

To compress photos online, use the TinyPNG website (aka TinyJPG). To compress a photo, an image, a drawing online without losing quality, just drag the images (.png or .jpg) to the upper zone and wait for the site to compress them.

By default, you can upload up to 20 5 MB images at a time.

There is no image quality setting on this site. It remains only to download. To do this, click Download and select a folder to save.

TinyPNG has its own WordPress plugin that can compress photos online without losing quality while uploading to the server.

When you take a photo with a professional or amateur camera, you get huge images, which are not always convenient to use. Well, working with them in editors is almost impossible. But if you download images via the Internet, their size can be reduced automatically to save your traffic. All images are sized in pixels and change accordingly, it is also necessary in these units.

Ways to resize a photo

The most common and easy-to-use image editor found on almost every computer is Paint. It is located in standard programs and opens through the start menu of your computer.

Add to this graphic editor the photo you need for work, which is too small. Next, specify in what percentage Paint should increase the size of this image. This menu item is opened by clicking on the middle key in the top menu of this graphical editor. Also, this window can be opened much easier, with a simple combination of ctrl + w. In a new window that opens, the "Resize and Skew" menu contains all the necessary parameters for resizing the image. Initially, all image sizes are set here as a percentage, and the new setting of the image size parameters is performed proportionally. Although you can change the settings for pixels. That is, the image itself will retain all its original proportions, but will change the size itself. After you set the necessary parameters of the image size, you need to click on the OK button and the graphics editor will resize the edited image in the way you need.

If the new dimensions match the required parameters, save the image. If not, repeat the procedure until the file reaches the size you need. You can increase the size of an image in this graphics editor in the same way. Paint is simple and easy to use, it allows you to carry out all basic manipulations with any images as quickly as possible, due to the intuitive interface and simplicity of the menu items. There are other editors, but they are not always convenient to use, because they are not preset and have more complex options for changing the properties of photos, even as simple as photo sizes.

How to resize a photo (video)

Instructions

Use, for example, the simple graphics editor Paint, which is installed with the Windows operating system. You can run it through the main menu - press the win key to open it, then go to the "All Programs" section, open the "Standard" subsection and select Paint. You can do without a menu - press the key combination win and r, enter the text mspaint and click OK.

Load the photo you want to enlarge into the graphic editor. The corresponding dialog can be invoked by pressing the "hot keys" ctrl + o. Use it to find the file containing the photo on your computer and click on the "Open" button.

Specify by what percentage Paint should enlarge the photo. This setting is called by clicking on the middle button in the vertical group of three icons in the "Image" section of the editor menu. The same command is duplicated by the ctrl + w hotkeys. In the opened window "Resize and tilt", the upper section contains the scaling settings you need - increase the number in the "Horizontal" or "Vertical" field to the required value. By default, the dimensions are indicated here in percent, and the change is proportional, but if necessary, you can change both of these settings - check the box next to the inscription "pixels", and uncheck the box in the "Maintain proportions" checkbox. When the magnification options are set, click OK and Paint will resize photos accordingly.

Save made changes... If you no longer need the file with the original photo, just press the key combination ctrl + s, and the graphic editor will write the photo in its new sizes to the same file. Otherwise, click on the blue button in the upper left corner and in the drop-down menu go to the "Save As" section. Select one of the graphic formats listed there, and the application will open a standard Windows save dialog. In it you need to specify the name of the new file and the place where it should be written, and then click the "Save" button. This completes the operation of increasing and saving photos It will be completed.

Sources:

enlarge photo online

Even the simplest modern soap dish today can make good quality graphics that can be easily printed in large format. But sometimes the user still faces the need to enlarge the photo, and his irreplaceable friend and comrade Photoshop will come to his aid.

Instructions

But first, let's figure out what exactly do you mean by “enlarge photo”, because many users often confuse two completely different concepts - “enlarge photo” and “enlarge plan of photo”. Let's say you have a photo like the one above, it's a great extension that suits you just fine, but you want your subject to look like it doesn't get lost somewhere in the depths of the image. What you need will be called “zoom in on the photograph”. The Crop function can easily deal with the problem. You can find the crop in the Photoshop toolbar.

Click on the button on the panel, move the mouse cursor over the photo, press the left key and drag to the size you need. The frame can be made both variable and fixed, as desired. Pressing the Enter key will complete the operation. You have enlarged the outline of the photograph.

But most often, by the words “enlarge the photo” the user understands the enlargement of the enlargement of this photo, and this will be a more complicated option. It's easy to create small out of large, but for the opposite result you will have to make some efforts, and the photo will hardly be avoided.

Currently, the most used algorithms for enlarging photos in Photoshop are the following two methods.
1. Step by step enlargement of the photo. If the photo is immediately enlarged by 100%, it will greatly lose quality, and with an increase of only 10%, the deterioration is unlikely to be noticeable to the eye. Therefore, it is better 10 times 10 than once, but 100 at once.

2. You can enlarge the photo to a size twice the desired size, sharpen it, blur unnecessary elements, add saturation, contrast and reduce to the desired size, while setting the Bicubic Sharper compression algorithm

I love to do graphics: draw on a graphics tablet, process pictures and photos in Photoshop and create collages. Sometimes there is a need to enlarge an already finished but small picture. Usually, after such manipulations, the graphics looks blurry due to the fact that pixels are lost. Here's how to enlarge an image without losing quality, we'll talk now.

I tried many different programs to enlarge the image without losing quality, but all of them had a very poor image after enlarging. And then one day, already completely desperate to find what I needed, I came across a foreign site where the program was offered SmillaEnlarger beta version.

Most likely, I would have left from there, tk. I do not speak foreign languages, but due to the fact that I have a google chrome browser, I was offered a translation of this page and in the description I read that

SmillaEnlarger is a small graphical tool (Qt based) for resizing, especially enlarging high quality bitmaps. (The algorithm used is my own invention)

And I decided to try it too.

You can download the program from the official

Working with SmillaEnlarger

Go to the page of the site with this program and press the big green button " Download"(If your page is not translated, then the button is called" Download»).

The program is packed into an archive, which must be unpacked first.

As a result, you should have a folder SmillaEnlarger-0.9.0... Open it and go to the folder SmillaEnlarger.

Find the file in it SmillaEnlarger.exe, and launch it.

As you can see, there is no need to install the program. It can be simply run from this folder.

A program will open in which a picture with a dog is shown for a sample.

Upload your picture

We set the necessary parameters:

In the window OutputHeightset the size of the height of the enlarged picture.

In the window WriteResultto you can write the preferred name of the enlarged file or leave the same name that it had, only the program itself at the end of the name will add the letter "e" through the lower hyphen. The file will be saved in the same folder where it was before.

If you want to save the file to another folder, then you must uncheck the box next to the entry UseSourceFolder... Then the button is activated ChangeFolderby clicking on which you can select another folder on your computer.

Now you can click on the Enlarge & Save button below and after a couple of seconds in the specified folder you will have an enlarged picture file. And the quality of the file is quite passable.

If you want the file's performance to be even better, you can try to select other parameters.