What is the best way to blow up picture?

Question

I am trying to blow up a 5x5 inch image to 10x10 inch image. I tried scanning the images and than using the t-shirt printing program to blow them up but the scanner picks up a lot of dust/debris that is not visible to the naked eye. Also when I blew the pictures up they were quite distorted. Does anyone know of a program that can blow the image up without causing as much distortion? Also, is there any other method that I can use other than the scanner? Like for instance, I was thinking that if I take a picture of the image with a digital camera the pixels will be much higher than the scanned version and therefore will reduce the amount of distortion once I try to enlarge the image. Am I correct in thinking this? Any other useful advice is greatly appreciated. I am trying to start a t-shirt selling side hustle for when I'm off my day job and this is a set back. I've gotten the press and materials needed and I'm ready to roll.

Answer 1

You may have reached the limit of your picture's resolution. Go to a photofinisher and see if he can get your print enlarged at a reasonable price. They have access to specialized equipment that the average person does not.

Try it with your digital camera. It's cheap and you have nothing to lose.

Answer 2

There are several photo programs that will let you do this. Photoshop is best, but it's a little pricey. Once you have an image scanned into your computer, you can manipulate it in a number of ways with a photo program.

You must understand, however, that whenever you blow up a picture, the quality won't be the same. The larger a picture gets, the more the quality suffers. That was true even in the days of film processing and using negatives.

Some dust and debris will indeed show up. After all, everything's being magnified. Once you get proficient with the photo program, many of those can be eliminated.

Increasing the resolution is the easiest way to get the best possible quality. But remember, the overall quality of the original will determine how good (or bad) the enlargement will be.

Taking a picture of a picture with a digital camera is not the wisest choice. That's known as going through another "generation," and something always suffers.

What causes distortion in a blow-up is when you only enlarge one side of the picture. Both the length and width of the photo need to be enlarged to the same proportions.

Answer 3

There are some upsizing programs that outperform even Photoshop, in terms of visual quality; chief among those are OnOne Genuine Fractals, Benvista PhotoZoom Pro, General Cathexis SAR Image Processor, Alien Skin Blow Up and QImage.

But, as Pat S correctly pointed out, there's only so much you can get from an image, scanned or otherwise; you most certainly won't get any more detail, just the _appearance_ of higher sharpness. Try to clean it up before scanning it, then scan it with a good enough resolution (about 300 ppp for a positive, probably more for slides and negatives) and bit depth, then use Photoshop or some of those programs to try and see how much you can enlarge it before it becomes too evident that you're not gaining any additional detail and apparent sharpess (you'll probably see that nothing above 200% enlargement does any good).

Answer 4

Try enlarging the original saved image, not a print of it. A 4X enlargement of a print is a stretch IMO. (5x5 = 25 square inches; 10x10 = 100 square inches, thus the 4X). Of course if you're using a camera with only 2 or 3 megapixels you still may not get the desired results.

I have several 16x20 prints hanging on my wall, all from 35mm negatives.

Answer 5

You really can't while the original image is small. However you can scan it big and use Photoshop to resize it, it's to cheat in another word.

Go to image size, change to 105% at a time, do it several times and see if it reaches your need. Do not do 200% or 400% because you'll see obvious pixels.