Enlarging pictures without reducing the quality?

Question

How can I enlarge pictures without reducing the quality?
I have some pictures that I scanned into my computer and I want to make a collage out of them, but there too small to work with. Thank you in advance x

Answer 1

You need to re-scan the pictures at a higher resolution.

When you scan a picture, or take a digital picture, the resulting image is made up of thousands or millions of little dots. When you make an enlargement of those files, you are actually moving those dots further apart to fill more space. If you don't have enough dots per inch of space the picture starts to look fuzzy. Somewhere in your scanner's software is an adjustment to raise teh number of dots per inch. Set it so that your results have at least 150 dots per inch and you will likely be happy.

For example - you have a 4X6 print you would like to make into an 8X12. You would have to scan the smaller picture at 300 dots per inch to achieve 150 dpi in the result.

Answer 2

You can't is the simple answer - enlargement always reduces image quality to some extent.

BUT:
It is possible to 'interpolate' / enlarge the images after they are on your computer by up to 800% or so using photoshop or similar image editing software.

Your best bet is also to print them out on a dithered printer (such as an inkjet) which will help to disguise image break up - a lot!

You can re-scan them at higher resolution too.

Answer 3

To successfully enlarge an image you must begin with a high resolution file (or negative).

If your digital camera has, for example, 3 settings for image quality - High, Medium and Low - and you choose Low so you can store more images on your memory card, then your file will be a lower resolution and incapable of quality enlargements larger than 4x6. If you choose High then you'll store fewer images on your memory card but you'll be able to make bigger enlargements.

Your ISO setting also plays a major role. If you set it at 800 or 1600, even with noise reduction, you are limited to the size of the enlargements you can make. So keep that ISO down to 100, 200 max.

Your image must also be carefully focused and the exposure must be right. The tiniest flaw will be magnified when you enlarge the image.

Answer 4

if you scan it, chances are the scanner will bring it up to an enlarged picture, but it will probably not be that great of quality, so you could then photoshop it, and make it look better :]

Answer 5

Well, it depends whether you saved it or not. After resizing it smaller, if you saved it, then the quality for the smaller pixels are already gone, therefore when enlarging it again, it'll be pixelized.

Answer 6

In support of Jon B's answer. Read the caption.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/2068262218/

You can do quite well using a higher resolution scan.

Answer 7

Why don't you photocopy them !

Collage is seen as an informal piece of work so it is quite acceptable to photocopy your images and up size on the photocopy machine.