Image,upsizing,Best,methods,co computer Image upsizing: Best methods compared

----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc

I will begin by explaining various aspects about imageresizing: how it works, what the important problems are, who would beinterested in this. I’ll continue by comparing several existing methods.Finally I’ll conclude with the best method to use.How does enlargingwork?Upsizing an image increases its resolution (size inpixels/points). To do this, information from the original image is used tocreate the enlarged version. Imagine a grid of pixels in a plane. In theoriginal image they are all side by side. Enlarging the image means enlargingthe grid. The more you stretch it, the more separated the pixels become. Thosepixels in-between need to be filled-in.  This is called interpolation. There can be othersteps after interpolation.Problems that need tobe solved by upsizingOne of the problems that appear is that for small imagespixels on the edges may be aliased. This becomes more apparent when enlarging.This is the jagged edges problem that many upsizing methods try to overcome. Inone extreme you have edges that are sharp but jagged in another smooth butblurry.  A compromise between smoothingan edge and keeping it sharp is searched for. Over-smoothing to maintain sharpness is not that hard to obtain but thiscreates an unrealistic look to images.  Another problem is loss of detailed texture inthe upsized image. The only method that even considers this is reshading.When is upsizing animage useful?Increasing the size by 200% means transforming a 3 megapixel(MP) image into a 12 MP one. If something like this can be created withoutlosing quality then using an average camera and upsizing it would be almost thesame as using a professional camera. Also, cropping and enlarging a portion ofan image would be equivalent to having a better zoom lens on your camera. Ofcourse, taking the photo with a professional camera and upsizing it would make verylarge prints easy.Well known methodsfor enlarging an imageI’ll present a few widely known approaches.  Some are commercially available: Photoshop, Genuine fractals, Photo zoomand others are free:  Reshade.PhotoshopAlthough everybody considers Photoshop as Thetool of choice for any image manipulation,its features cover only some basic needs in this field. It is mainly designed tobe a framework for image processing by allowing the inclusion of plug-ins thatcan easily interoperate. Because of this, even experienced Photoshop users havea hard time when upsizing images. The default algorithms for this purpose aremade to be fast but not very powerful.Best methods forupsizing imagesThese methods go further in their search for better qualityupsizing. They are designed to allow greater enlargement factors withoutserious degradation in image quality.ReshadeThis is the newest method from the ones I mentioned.  It permits enlargements of up to 200% without losingany quality. This means that even an experienced photographer would have a hardtime picking an enlarged version from an original photo. Beyond this zoomfactor, the images look a little over-processed. Even at higher zoom ratiosreshade seams to work better on most images than any of the other techniques.From my point of view it's the best choice. I wouldn’t need greater zoominganyway because the degradation becomes visible with any possible techniquebeyond 200% enlargement. Genuine fractals This method tries not to overdo the edge sharpening andde-blurring like Photo zoom and maintains the quality of the image pretty good(for zoom factors of about 500%). For smaller zooms the image quality is verysimilar to what you can get in Photoshop. That means a lot of blurry edgesremain after upsizing.Photo zoom Although the clarity of the edges is better than for Genuinefractals (at large zoom factors, 400%), there is an obvious smoothing effectthat creates the impression that the image has been over-painted. This might beok if it’s what you’re looking for but for photography, it adds an unrealisticlook to the resized images. Although small details when enlarged remain smooth,reshading does a better job at this, also keeping them small. ConclusionIn conclusion, I do not suggest using enlarging for everyphoto you take. The original can always look better even if an enlarged versionhas insignificant quality loss. But, it often happens that you want to croponly a part of a picture and it becomes too small to print or use as desktopwallpaper. Or maybe you don’t have your best camera nearby and use a lowermegapixel one. In these situations enlarging becomes the best option available.I recommend reshading your pictures for best quality. It’s also freelyavailable online at: reshade.com.