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The number of pixels in your image is decided at the moment that you create it — whether by scanning, or directly in a digital camera. You need to start with a big enough file for your final needs — not be increasing resolution after the fact.
Unlike TV crime dramas which miraculously reveal a clear license plate number shot by a security video camera 50 yards away, you cannot reveal image detail or texture that is not in the original image (although you can enhance weak detail). If your image is small or low resolution and you can’t reshoot the original at appropriate resolution, you may be able to interpolate data that could give you a satisfactory larger image using resampling techniques, including Genuine Fractals. The image would be larger. The edges would be suitably sharp. But you would have no additional detail. And set side by side with a properly shot original, there would be differences in detail and overall quality.
In the old days with slower machines, documents were oftened processed at a lower resolution until near the end, then resized up before the details such as text were added. This was proposed by Kai and it is still done on slower machines sometimes.
If you have a fast machine and enough drive space start with the full rez image.
To resize upwards in PS CS use bicubic smoother. I believe this was your question. SOme people do it 10% at a time.
If you have a 100 dpi file to start with and you increase the file to 300 dpi, Photoshop takes an average of the dots on either side and adds 2 more dots in between to increase the amount of pixels to 300. The problem is, the new pixels–say between a black pixel and a white pixel–would be 2 grey pixels (at 50% actually). The result is a soft, fuzzy image with, as someone else mentioned, no greater quality than the lower rez image.
This process is interpolation. It should be avoided when going larger than your original.
James Earl Jones is a great hollywood name. The hollywood filter, less so.
Of course when you are only given a small number of pixels to begin with, and can’t get access to original artwork to rescan (this has happened to all of us), resampling is the only choice sometimes.
The biggest factor when determining whether you need to do this or not is the type of printer or rip to which you will be printing.
Some printers/rips re-interpolate all raster imagery anyway to soemthing like 300ppi, so if that is the type of printer you use, there is really no reason to uprez in Photoshop. All you will do is create more data to transfer, and get basically the same result (i.e. kind of a mushy pixel effect).
Other types of printers/rips do not resample rasters and if the rez is low enough, pixels become glaringly visible. If that is the type of printer you use, then uprezzing in Photoshop is the answer. It’s not a great answer, just the best one under the circumstances. Better to have a kind of mushy image that visible pixels.
Then again, some people actually WANT pixels to show sometimes for an effect, but that is a whole nother issue.
An 8ppi image will print nice crisp 1/8 inch squares of color on the 2nd type of printer mentioned above, but unless special care is taken, will be tranformed into a weird mush pile by the 1st type of printer. It is probably, better to resample those types of things using nearest neighbor, or maybe making it in the first place using the mosaic filter.
Thank you all for your for your advise, I guess I need to look at how big the images are. I am not shooting digital but having all my still images transferred to cd at a pro-lab. Photoshop is so foreign to me right now. It has been about 3yrs since I last used it, now that I finally have the money I have the luxury of using it everyday. I have also just recently made a change from PC to Mac. I purchased a Mac G4, which is great considering I had a $500.00 Hewlett previously. I find that Mac’s are so much more user friendly than anything I have used in the past.
By the way I am not the real Jame Earl Jones…….. 🙂
I was thinking about Greta Gabel, but I’m not that sexy!
You may need to give your Lab rather specific instructions because the standard "Save your photos to CD" services usually give you very small JPEGs (probably less than 2MB) which are suitable for on-screen monitoring or web-work but are only suitable for very small images if you are going to print them.
So I guess you could say I may be really screwed. I know they told me I wouldn’t be able to print anything bigger than a 8 x 10 from their cd’s, which is fine for now I guess. With the Epson 2200 I can only go maybe one or two sizes bigger anyway. I will have to double check with the lab and find out. Thanks for bringing this to my attention
The physical footprint is quite small and it should come with both Firewire and USB cables. Yo will need sufficient space on your HD to store files until you burn them to a CD. Obviously, firewire will give you better performance if you can use it.
I talked to my lab and they advised me that each file or image(sorry i am very computer smart)is 25MB. They said it should be more than big enough to work off. Are they speaking the truth or are they pulling my hairy leg?
They are 25MB….so if I want to work from that image, how do I adjust it or increase the resolution. When I print the image file as is, it turns out to be to big to print. How do I make the image smaller to fit the print w/o affecting the pixels? Whenever I make the image smaller, the amount of pixels decrease….which in turn makes my image look like a picture of pixels. Again I do appreciate all your help…..like I said earlier I am very new to all this.
Ann, Thank ya…….thank ya vury much! You do not know how much this helps me. If I knew ya and was standing next to ya I would give you a big hug. Thank you.
Hey…I am just glad that someone was willing to help. Usually you go on forums and people do everything they can to belittle you. I really do appreciate it. Sorry I don’t have any Godivas to feed through the net. Here’s a virtual hug though…errrrrrrrr! Sorry didn’t mean to squeeze to hard.
Try not to downsample, i.e. do not resample to a smaller amount of pixels. Just change the document resolution (ppi) without altering the number of pixels.
Ramón, I have fancied myself to be Ann’s main forum squeeze for a long time, certainly ever since I sent her a carton of Godivas. Now I see on this thread her penchant for indiscriminate solicitation and feel deeply scorned. I bear no ill-will toward James Earl. Ann simply brings this kind of affection out in people so how could he be expected to help himself… and besides, he’s one of my favorite actors. But Ann’s conduct here is unspeakably painful.
Sorry…ever since my voice over in Star Wars, I tend to get this kind of reaction. It has something to do with the whole Darth Vader thing……really I am not into the whole Star Wars thing. It’s just not my bag baby! If you know what I mean.
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