What are the best practices for upsizing an image?

[mc_mark]

I've got CS6 and need to take an image that's 15x11 @Deleted User and upsize it to 60x48 @Deleted User. What's the best way to do this that will produce the best results? Thanks.

[Chuck Uebele]

I know you said that you have CS6, but CC has a new upscaling feature called "Preserve Detail" that workd fairly well.  Your'e other option is to get onOne's Genuine Fractals, that is good for upscaling.  Other than than, try some of the different resampling modes.  Some might work better for your file.  Bicubic Smoother is suppost to be good for upscaling, but sometimes some of the other modes are better.

[mc_mark]

Yes I was using Bicubic Smoother and it wasn't too bad. Are there accepted rules to follow when upscaling this much? Such as do it in smaller steps instead of going straight from 15x11 to 60x48 (actually it would go to 65.4x48 and then cropped to 60x48)?

[Chuck Uebele]

I've never heard of doing it in steps - I don't think that would do anything for you, but you can try and compare.

[John Waller]

Such as do it in smaller steps instead of going straight from 15x11 to 60x48 (actually it would go to 65.4x48 and then cropped to 60x48)?

Some advocate best results from upsizing in 10% increments. Others disagree. Depends on the image, I guess.

http://photolesa.com/tutorials/upsizing-image-minimal-quality-loss

Then there are 3rd party solutions such as Perfect Resize

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/resize8/

[Chuck Uebele]

Nice, John.  Learn something new all the time.

[mc_mark]

Thanks John. Although that's quite an old article regarding the 10% increments, I'll give it a shot. I've used the demo versions of Perfect Resize before and wasn't too impressed to the point of buying it.

[John Waller]

mc_mark wrote:

Thanks John. Although that's quite an old article regarding the 10% increments, I'll give it a shot.

Was the first link I found via Google which mentioned the steps.

The concept has been around for years and is really timeless. It's still discussed online today.

If you've got the right image the technique can work quite well.

I have Perfect Resize (I like most of OnOne's products) but,as always, the results depend on the image and how the software is used and tweaked. I've never found a magic tool which works perfectly on all images.

[gener7]

I've gotten both Perfect Resize and Photozoom Pro 5. I think Photozoom gives the best results out of the box, that is I never have to tinker with the settings. You demo it and see if it's a good fit.

Photozoom licenses are separate for Mac and PC while Perfect Resize will let you use your two seats on either platform.

Photozoom Pro is $199,but on occasion they have it on sale for $99.

Gene

[Chris Cox]

Resizing in several steps leads to MORE artifacts, not less -- it's a really bad idea.

Bicubic Smoother was designed to replicate the pleasing part of step interpolation, without all the artifacts.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Chris Cox wrote:

Resizing in several steps leads to MORE artifacts, not less -- it's a really bad idea.

Bicubic Smoother was designed to replicate the pleasing part of step interpolation, without all the artifacts.

It feels kind of rediculous seconding a comment made by someone who helped create the product, but I have tried the 10% steps and it really doesn't work.  Upsizing is all about expectations.  You are never going to upsize without loss of quality, but some methods 'seem' to lose less quality than others.  It also depends on the particular image in the same way that sharpening does.  Perfect resize 'seems' to be marginally better than other methods I've tried, and I like the 'Preserve details' resampling option IN CC, but it is still very subjective unless you do a full comparitive double blind test. 

I tend to leave it to the printer to work out, which extends my life by reducing the stress induced by daft as a brush pixel-peeping.

[Jeff Schewe]

I wrote an article about upsampling (pre Photoshop CC) that has some useful tips:

The Art Of The Up-Res

And Chris is correct...the whole reason why Bicubic Smoother/Sharper was developed was to improve over the step interpolation...you really don't want to do step interpolation with Bicubic Smoother.

However, Photoshop CC does have the ability to do even better upsampling using the Preserve Details option in Image Resize. The results are better than what you can do with previous versions of Photoshop.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

I wrote an article about upsampling (pre Photoshop CC) that has some useful tips:

The Art Of The Up-Res

And Chris is correct...the whole reason why Bicubic Smoother/Sharper was developed was to improve over the step interpolation...you really don't want to do step interpolation with Bicubic Smoother.

However, Photoshop CC does have the ability to do even better upsampling using the Preserve Details option in Image Resize. The results are better than what you can do with previous versions of Photoshop.

That was a great article Jeff.  I'm guessing that the cameras used were a 300D/Rebel, and 1DsMK2, and I'd have made a sizable bet that it was not possible to get the result you managed with the Rebel (if that's what it was?).  But before we all completely rethink our workflows, has anything notable changed in the six years since that article came out?  I note that your mention of the new Preserve details option, which I am liking a lot, although I have not had to use it much.

It was nice to see Chris Cox mentioned in the article, and acknowledgment of the roll he has played in developing Photoshop.  We are lucky to have the likes of you and him contribute to this forum.

Do you, have an opinion about downsizing for web?  (I believe you are principally a print person, so maybe not).  There have been discussions here about the dire results of downsizing an already sharp image using bicubic automatic.  Worse still is what happens when uploading at a reasonable pixel size to an image sharing site like flickr, and the site wreaks havoc with image quality when producing smaller thumbnail versions.

Thanks again for sharing the article. 

[Jeff Schewe]

The only thing that has changed since the article is the new Preserve Details option in Photoshop CC. Of course, new 3rd party options have been developed but I tend to stay away from them.

I've known Chris from before he joined Adobe...I was in San Jose at Adobe on Chris' first day :~)

<< yep - ccox >>

In terms of downsampling, if you are downsampling a large file to web size, I tend to downsample in several steps of regular Bicubic and no more that 50% at a time to get close to the final size then I use Bicubic Sharper at the last step. The main reason for this is I'm really sensitive to aliasing artifacts that can occur in high frequency textures and edges. Oddly enough, I'll sometimes use a very gentle low radius G-blur to smooth out problem areas.

And yes, that was a Rebel compared to a 1Ds M2...

[station_two]

Jeff Schewe wrote:

…Photoshop CC does have the ability to do even better upsampling using the Preserve Details option in Image Resize. The results are better than what you can do with previous versions of Photoshop.

…which is among the several reasons to wish there were an upgrade to a perpetual license of Photoshop 14.x.  Wishful thinking, of course…

[Trevor.Dennis]

Station, the more I use CC the more I like it, which is what has tended to happen with previous versions.  So take up the Photography deal at $10 a month.  It's a steal.  

[station_two]

No way, Trevor.  Let's say I sign up for the subscription, at $10/month for presumably one year.  After one year, I've spent $120 and still have nothing.  Add another four years at the regular price, and after five years, I'll still owe nothing.

Paying a monthly tribute to Adobe in perpetuity will never be acceptable. 

Just as I see no reason to upgrade my older but perfectly serviceable versions of Illustrator 10, InDesign 2 and Acrobat 8 Pro now, I can foresee a version of Photoshop that I will not need or want to upgrade to.

[gener7]

I took a 600 x 600 px jpg of this radio and upsized it to 1200 px.

Left to Right using Bicubic Smoother, Preserve Details, and Photozoom Pro. I am using my laptop's LCD screen and not a large monitor, but I do like PZ's results.

[JJMack]

mc_mark wrote:

I've got CS6 and need to take an image that's 15x11 @300dpi and upsize it to 60x48 @300dpi. What's the best way to do this that will produce the best results? Thanks.

Why do you need 300 DPI for a 5 foot by 4 foot image? Images that size are not viewed from a distance where the human vision can resolve down to 300 DPI.