Can a blurry or low-resolution photo be improved enough for a larger print?
Asked 10/22/2015
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My photo won a charity calendar competition, but when the organizers tried to enlarge it for printing they said the quality was not good enough and it looked blurred. Is there any way to improve an existing image so it can be printed larger, or should I try to find and resend the original file from the camera?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
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Assuming that what was sent is a file produced by the camera:
That is not possible. A camera has a sensor which captures a certain amount of details. You cannot make up for missing pixels, the information is not there. That is why it matters to use a camera of the right resolution for print-size and viewing distance. See this answer for a nice chart illustrating this.
One can make things a little sharper by using a sharpening filter but that would allow only a very small increase it print-size, if at all. To do this, you use an image processing software like Photoshop Elements or Lightroom. Even some free software can do this.
If you processed this file somehow, perhaps unintentionally, it may have been reduced in size. In which case you have to go back to the original from the camera and check if the resolution is the same.
Originally by user1620. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1620
10y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Usually, no—not in any major way. If the image is blurry or too low in resolution, the missing detail is not in the file, so software cannot truly recreate it.
The best option is to go back to the original image straight from the camera, if you still have it. Sometimes a photo was accidentally resized smaller during emailing, editing, or uploading, and the original file may be good enough.
Editing software can help a little: mild sharpening may improve the appearance slightly, and some people enlarge in small steps with very light sharpening between steps. But this only gives a modest improvement at best and can quickly make the image look unnatural or oversharpened.
So the practical answer is:
- Find the original full-size file from the camera.
- Avoid versions that were compressed for email or social media.
- If needed, try light sharpening in photo-editing software.
A service can enlarge the file for you, but it cannot create real detail that was never captured.
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