How do I enlarge thumnails without distortion?

Answer 1

By "distortion" I'm sure you mean "pixelization." And, the answer to your question is that you can't, no matter what these others try to tell you.

Enlarging a small pixel only results in larger pixels. That is the distortion you see. If the camera only caught a small resolution image, no software will be able to go back in time and space to find and fill in the details that are missing from the image.

You can, sort of, "fake" a very SMALL degree of improvement, but the result will only be what the computer "guesses" should be included. You can direct Photoshop to "smooth" edges, but the software will not know if a "bump" should have been smoothed, or was a real feature of the image that should have been left alone. A sign, for example, that is too small to read in the original, small, image, will not, suddenly, become legible when enlarged. If a letter, in the sign, was composed of only two or three pixels, the computor will not "know" what the letter was supposed to have been.

Answer 2

It all depends on the pixels (Quality) of the thumbnail. If the quality is low the best way is to enlarge it using a picture retouch program like photoshop. Simply enlarge the picture to the largest possible without too much distortion and adjust the picture using the sharpening tool.

Answer 3

If the image is a jpg, and you want to go larger from there you will get distortion due to how the rendering is done. If it is a different type of file (i.e. TIF, RAW, PSD) you can upscale in Photoshop using image size.

Answer 4

Well generally what you start with is as good as it gets, but there are a couple of programs that can blow up files I think it's 1000 times the original. They're used for pro-sumer large format printing. One is called genuine fractals I have never used it but it comes highly recommended. The other is called Blow Up and as soon as my degree starts generating a little revenue i'll be buying it.