Can I enlarge a 461×491 old photo for printing without Photoshop?
Asked 7/25/2014
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I have an old digital photo that is only 461×491 pixels (about 29 KB). I’d like to print it at a typical photo size, and I’m wondering whether I can increase its size/resolution using an iPhone app or desktop software other than Photoshop.
Is there any practical way to do this, and what kind of print quality should I realistically expect?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
4
Short answer: Oh, boy...
Long answer:
The way exists, of course. However, the quality most probably will be very low because the difference in dimensions are too big.
I assume that "print it in a regular image size" from your question talks about an image somewhere around 6 MPixels, which is rather conservative. Perhaps other would say 8 Mpixels.
Anyway your image is 0.22 MPixels. Waaaay too small. There is way too much information which is missing and even the best interpolation algorithms (aka. resampling kernels) cannot "guess" such a big amount of data to fill it up.
Also, what makes the things worse is that different kernels give different results, depending on what kind of image you have.
If you take this path you can download a free image manager like XnView MP or FastStone Viewer and try there different kernels/methods:

(XnView MP Resize/Resample dialog above)
There are also other algorithms which claim somewhat better results (for ex. Alien Skin Blow Up) but these are not free products (usually these are paid plugins for Photoshop) and, anyway, they claim good resize till "just" @300% in best case which is far away in your case.
Beside above, another thing which you can do is to do the upscale in steps: scale to 200% using the Kernel/Method 1, after this Sharpen if needed, after this scale to 200% using the Kernel 2 etc. Do it step by step and look and how the intermediate steep looks in your eyes. Apply the appropriate filter/scaling algorithm in order to keep the picture 'on track'.
Also, 29KB file size for an image spells to me "JPEG" which is a lossy compression which can have artifacts, complicating the things even more.
OTOH, I didn't saw the picture but if this is a computer art or any other form of imagery which can be traced then there exists another approach: intelligent tracing and resampling - but there you need to be a geek to find/write the program. In this case, tough, the results are quite impressive. Go here and hover the mouse over the blue algorithm names to see the comparison.
In fact this kind of problem is rather art & craft than straightforward. And most probably the result will not hold up to (your) print quality standards.
Originally by user952. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user952
12y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
You can enlarge the file, but you can’t recover detail that isn’t there.
A 461×491 image contains very little information, so any app or desktop editor can resample it to more pixels, but that only creates guessed/interpolated pixels. The result may look less blocky, but usually softer or blurrier—not truly higher resolution.
So yes, software can make it bigger for printing, but no software can automatically turn it into a sharp, normal-size high-quality print.
What to expect:
- Small prints may be acceptable if you can tolerate softness.
- Larger “regular” prints will likely look poor because the source image is too small.
- Different resizing methods can give slightly different results depending on the photo, but none can invent missing detail.
If you still want to try, use any basic image editor/viewer with resize/resample features and test-print at a small size first. Keep expectations modest: enlargement can smooth pixel edges, but it won’t create real detail.
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AI12y ago
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