How to increase the size of photos, preserving the original quality

With the advent of photography in the first half of the 19th century, there was a natural desire to enlarge the image to the size of an art canvas. One of the real and most effective ways, which is still used today, was to redraw the cells, but today they rarely give such advice, because it is obvious that those who want to enlarge the image are interested in how to increase the size of photos on the computer.

Image size on a PC monitor

Since we are talking about a PC, we say that on the monitor the image size is reduced / increased by a combination of Ctrl (- / +) keys or a mouse wheel with the same Ctrl key pressed. And if you're on the Web, you can affect the size of the image by changing the scale in the "View" tab in the browser menu. No one is allowed to change the screen resolution by calling this command by right-clicking on the desktop.

Now, if you follow the principle of "from simple to complex", you need to figure out how to increase the size of photos in Paint, because, firstly, it's a standard graphics editor (Start> All Programs> Standard), which comes with the Windows operating system, And secondly, many do not even suspect about some of his abilities, including the "Resize" button on the "Home" tab.

Stretch the picture in Paint

In the "Resize and tilt" dialog box, you usually check the "Keep proportions" checkbox and specify either a percentage or a specific value in pixels. In the second case, just specify the desired width of the image (change horizontally) so that the second parameter is changed automatically.

In some versions of Paint, there is also a "Points" option, which allows you to enter certain image sizes. If everything is OK, just tell the editor.

Finding out how to increase the size of photos, most users probably do not even consider it necessary to add that without losing quality, believing that this goes without saying. However, this silent condition is not so easy to perform, because the image in rough approximation can be compared to a mosaic of multi-colored pixels. It is easy to imagine what the picture will look like if it is simply stretched, because the number of informative pixels will remain the same, and the physical size will increase.

To somehow maintain a certain degree of quality, you need to fill in the "voids" given the content of the surrounding pixels. Unfortunately, the good old Paint does not do it well, but there are many programs that, with the help of various data interpolation algorithms between stretched pixels (resample methods), can increase images with very decent quality. Most of these services, among which the paid PhotoZoom Pro are especially popular, are functionally similar and easy to use, but if you just recommend them to those who want to learn how to increase the size of photos in Photoshop, this will be an evasive answer.

The ability of "Photoshop" to resize photos

If you are going to enlarge the image, you should keep in mind that the result directly depends on the quality and size of the source material. After uploading the photo to "Photoshop" in the "Image" menu, select the "Image size" command, thus opening the same window in which the dialogue with the program is conducted.

If you completely trust the program, you can only specify the width and height in the fields of the "Document Size" block (Document Size), and leave the remaining parameters as the default ones, including the "Resample Image" function and the "Bicubic automatic" (Bicubic), which, as a rule, prefer the remaining five algorithms. Then open the window "Automatic selection of resolution" with the "Auto ..." button (Auto), select the desired quality (the default is "Good") and click OK.

Note : Resample is a function to control the amount of data in images that are resized or resolved.

Little tricks

Perhaps not everyone knows about some well-known recommendations on how to increase the size of photos with minimal loss of quality using any graphic editor with correction and resampling functions, but it does not have to be "Photoshop".

First, you need to prepare the original image, slightly increasing its scale and carefully studied for the presence of noise, blurred areas (where they should not be), various spots and other likely defects. All the shortcomings must be eliminated (correct) and only then proceed to change the size.

Then you need to enlarge the photo twice as much as you planned, work with sharpness, contrast, saturation, then return to the correct size and make sure that the quality remains at the proper level. Here's a little trick, but that's not all.

What people will not come up with in their search for an original solution of how to increase the size of photos.

It turns out that if you enlarge the image size by 10%, visually deteriorating the quality will not be noticeable. Hence the obvious conclusion: repeatedly increasing the size of 10%, you can ... well, and then - who has any imagination. But this method is not universal, and its indiscriminate use for all photos in a row does not necessarily lead to good results, which largely depend on various quality parameters of the image, including the format. Black-and-white photography, for example, manages to stretch as much as 50%.

These "secret" techniques are allowed only in cases where there are no other options for some reason, and most likely "cunning products" will require a very serious post-processing in Photoshop.

Specialized programs

If you need an answer to the question of how to increase the size of photos with a minimal headache, use one of the specialized programs that have more interpolation algorithms than "Photoshop" and own original technologies are available. In addition to the previously mentioned program PhotoZoom Pro, these services: Perfect Resiz, Reshade Image Enlarger, OnOne Genuine Fractals Pro v6.0, Akvis Magnifier v3.0 and others.