Is there a good photo editing program to help me enlarge photos?

Question

I would like to enlarge photos and print them, but keep them looking like the origonal.

Answer 1

Most people think Adobe Photoshop is the best program, and it is used by lots of professionals. But it is very expensive. Many other photo editing software products can enlarge digital pictures quite well at lower cost. Try Photoshop Elements or Picture It. Or even the free copy of Kodak's picture software (see Kodak website)

The key to whether the enlargement will look as good as the original is related to how many pixels you have in the original.

When you enlarge a picture, you digitally "stretch" it. The original pixels either get spread out more (lower resolution), or more new pixels get created to fill up the space (interpolation). If you enlarge it so much that there are too few original pixels, the enlargement will be fuzzy or lack good color.

The better software can add sharpening or improve colors to some extent, but cannot work miracles. For example, pictures from a 3 mp camera will never be clear as poster size.

So,

Determine the pixels per inch (ppi) and size of your originals.

Figure out the ppi of the proposed enlargement with math. For example, if you double the size of the picture, ppi will be reduced by 1/2.

If the ppi of the enlargement is less than 100, the enlargement might be too fuzzy.

If you can get some software to try out, try the enlargement using the "Resample" option. This will get the software to create new pixels based on surrounding pixels in the original. This might work to get you a bigger, yet clear enlargement.

Have Fun!

Answer 2

Most scanners can do a great job, mines a Lexmark and I love the enlargement...RAY