I have some old digital photos, is there any way to enlarge?

[Notes_Norton]

I have some photos taken in the early days of digital photography. Sizes of the pictures are around 400K or less

 

Mostly photos I took while traveling, Spain, Bermuda, Hungary and other places I'll never see again.

 

Is there any way to blow them up without making them look blotchy? Or do I just have photos that look good at screen resolution.

 

Thanks,

Notes

[KuruPrionz]

400k as a compressed JPEG? How many pixels x pixels are they? That's the true size, the "file size" is meaningless but pixels are pixels.

 

Photoshop has some excellent tools for enlarging photos using AI to add pixels. It the detail is not there, it still won't be there.

Without the quality meeting standards you may be able to make the images larger but they won't have value in the commercial sense.

 

From a distance, images can be pretty low resolution and you won't see it. Billboards are often between 9 and 25 pixels per inch. They look just fine as you are driving by.

Usual process is to select quality photos and downsize them for the billboards only. Then the photos can be used in the rest of the campaign - magazines, television, etc.

[Notes_Norton]

180dpi and the size is 768x1024.

 

I downloaded a trial of Topaz Gigapixel A1 and when blowing up a scene with trees, the leaves looked like an impressionist painting

 

I did another with Bermuda Roofs (in Bermuda) and the roof surfaces looked splotchy.

 

They look fine at screen resolution, but setting the size to 100% in the viewing app, they look too low-res.

 

I've got thousands of slides I took with an EOS film camera, mostly Kodachrome or Ektachrome film. I'm thinking about scanning them since I no longer have a working projector. They will need to be cleaned first as they weren't stored in optimum conditions (I don't have those conditions in my home).

 

It's only a hobby for me, but a serious one. I make my living playing music.

 

Notes

[Chip McDonald]

PS CS has their new Super Resolution AI enlargement feature.

[Notes_Norton]

Thanks.

 

Notes

[KuruPrionz]

180dpi and the size is 768x1024.

 

I downloaded a trial of Topaz Gigapixel A1 and when blowing up a scene with trees, the leaves looked like an impressionist painting

 

I did another with Bermuda Roofs (in Bermuda) and the roof surfaces looked splotchy.

 

They look fine at screen resolution, but setting the size to 100% in the viewing app, they look too low-res.

 

I've got thousands of slides I took with an EOS film camera, mostly Kodachrome or Ektachrome film. I'm thinking about scanning them since I no longer have a working projector. They will need to be cleaned first as they weren't stored in optimum conditions (I don't have those conditions in my home).

 

It's only a hobby for me, but a serious one. I make my living playing music.

 

Notes

 

DPI is more or less a meaningless number unless you are setting something up to print it (I used to work in that realm). 768 x 1024 is barely enough pixels for an eBay listing these days, I size mine at 1600 x 1024 unless there are just a few of them, then I go larger.

 

The reality is that the detail is simply not there at that resolution. At smaller sizes, our brain fills in the blanks, when you spread those pixels out a bit they become more or less square chunks of part of what was there in front of you.

As good as many of the enlargement programs are, they cannot make something out of nothing. You can't lose detail that you don't have. Sad but true.

 

Your film images would be a better place to spend your time. Choose well and scan carefully. I've seen where some photographers purchase an old slide duplicator and use a modern digital camera for the capture. That can deliver a very good scan and it's fast. If you are shooting full frame then you should be good to go, if APS then you'll need to make some adjustments. Film captures enough detail to make an image that has value for licensing.

[Notes_Norton]

Thanks.

 

You confirmed what I guessed.

 

It's a bit sad because although I travel every non-COVID year, I never go back to the same places. Although I've had wonderful experiences in many of the places I've visited, I still have 50 more places I really want to visit, and I doubt that I have 50 more years left.

 

So my pictures from Spain, China, Hungary, Morocco, Bermuda, and a few other places will just have to stay low-res.

 

On the other hand, once this pandemic is over, Madagascar, Sub-Saharan Africa, Buenos Aires, Portugal, Ireland, Mongolia, India and so many other places are delights waiting to happen.

 

Any advice for cleaning a side before scanning? I don't want to immediately ruin the slide, but if I get a good scan, I'll probably ditch the slides so long term damage is not a problem.

 

Notes

[RichieP_MechE]

Any advice for cleaning a side before scanning? I don't want to immediately ruin the slide, but if I get a good scan, I'll probably ditch the slides so long term damage is not a problem.

Usually the only thing you have to clean off of a slide (or negative) is dust. Use canned air or a roket duster. You can also use a small anti-static brush, though with those there is a higher risk of scratching the emulsion on the film. If the slides have been roughly handled at all in their life, any scratches will become very apparent once you scan them. The only way to fix that is editing the digital file once it's been scanned.

[Notes_Norton]

Thanks

[KenElevenShadows]

As Chip mentioned, Adobe Photoshop has a Super Resolution feature. However, right now, it only works on RAW files, although other files are forthcoming.

 

I came across a YouTube video claiming that there were workarounds for this, but I haven't been able to make it work for me personally.