Enlarging image in GraphicConverter

[latergator116]

Hi guys,

I am trying to enlarge an image in GraphicConverter, but I am having a hard time doing this. First off, let me mention that I have absolutely no experience using any programs like these (i.e. anything like photoshop) so I really have no clue what I am doing (or talking about).

When I opened the image in Graphic converter, I increased the number of pixels from from 41 x 49 to 60 x 72 (maintaining the same ratio), but the new image comes out distorted and very pixelated. How do I enlarge the image, but maintain the same quality? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[MisterMe]

Hi guys,

I am trying to enlarge a picture in GraphicConverter, but I am having a hard time doing this. First off, let me mention that I have absolutely no experience using any programs like these (i.e. anything like photoshop) so I really have no clue what I am doing (or talking about).

When I opened the image in Graphic converter, I increased the number of pixels from from 41 x 49 to 60 x 72 (maintaining the same ratio), but the new image comes out distorted and very pixelated. How do I enlarge the image, but maintain the same quality? Any help will be greatly appreciated.Go to Picture>Size>Scale.... You may also press [CONTROL]-[APPLE]-[Y]. You will be presented with a dialog box with several options. Be sure to check the "Keep Proportions" and "Scale Picture." check boxes. There is also an "Algorithm" pop-up menu. You may keep the default or you may experiment with the algorithms to get the best result for your specific images. At any rate, you have the option of scaling by "Dimension" in either Percent or Pixel. The "Size" option gives the flexibility of scaling in either Inches or Centimeters and by "X-Resolution" and "Y-Resolution in either Pixels/inch or Pixels/cm.

[latergator116]

Go to Picture>Size>Scale.... You may also press [CONTROL]-[APPLE]-[Y]. You will be presented with a dialog box with several options. Be sure to check the "Keep Proportions" and "Scale Picture." check boxes. There is also an "Algorithm" pop-up menu. You may keep the default or you may experiment with the algorithms to get the best result for your specific images. At any rate, you have the option of scaling by "Dimension" in either Percent or Pixel. The "Size" option gives the flexibility of scaling in either Inches or Centimeters and by "X-Resolution" and "Y-Resolution in either Pixels/inch or Pixels/cm.

hmm... I just tried that, but it is still coming out a bit distorted (as you can see in my avatar). Do you have any other suggestions?

edit: nevermind, someone told me that there is no way to enlarge an image (beyond its original dimensions), without distoring it. Thanks anyway though, MisterMe.

[Sparky's]

Hi guys,

I am trying to enlarge an image in GraphicConverter, but I am having a hard time doing this. First off, let me mention that I have absolutely no experience using any programs like these (i.e. anything like photoshop) so I really have no clue what I am doing (or talking about).

When I opened the image in Graphic converter, I increased the number of pixels from from 41 x 49 to 60 x 72 (maintaining the same ratio), but the new image comes out distorted and very pixelated. How do I enlarge the image, but maintain the same quality? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Enlarging a file by adding pixels will not work, simply because you are adding pixels that do not contain any information so they have to "sample" the pixels around them to come up with a color to be. the pixalization will not go away because if you have (hypothetically speaking) a picture with 10 x10 pixel size and in a diaginal direction half are balck and half are white the picture will look like a stair step. if you add pixels to make it 100x100 pixels the picture will grow in size by kb but it will tsill look like a stair step, because you just made one single pixel be comprised of 10 pixels (it's confusing so hers are a few images to look at)
the small file is a 20x20 pixel @72ppi (pixels per inch) file I then increased the resolution to 288ppi and you can see the stair step is the same but the file just got larger in size. This is the simplest way I can explain it.

Sizing a file down is always the best, scaling it up just doesn'e cut it.

[latergator116]

Enlarging a file by adding pixels will not work, simply because you are adding pixels that do not contain any information so they have to "sample" the pixels around them to come up with a color to be. the pixalization will not go away because if you have (hypothetically speaking) a picture with 10 x10 pixel size and in a diaginal direction half are balck and half are white the picture will look like a stair step. if you add pixels to make it 100x100 pixels the picture will grow in size by kb but it will tsill look like a stair step, because you just made one single pixel be comprised of 10 pixels (it's confusing so hers are a few images to look at)
the small file is a 20x20 pixel @72ppi (pixels per inch) file I then increased the resolution to 288ppi and you can see the stair step is the same but the file just got larger in size. This is the simplest way I can explain it.

Sizing a file down is always the best, scaling it up just doesn'e cut it.

Yeah, thanks. That make perfect sense now (I don't know why that didn't occur to me).

Unfortunately, I got my avatar already at a low resolution (something like 50x50 pixels), so I won't be able to scale it up. I guess im out of luck.

[HexMonkey]

I tried enlarging it using a bicubic algorithm, and then sharpening it. It looks much better than a plain scale, but it's not perfect.

[Sparky's]

Enlarging by scaling to a max of about 120% in larger files (say 300dpi that are 4"x5") can be acceptable, but small files like your avatar will show degradation faster so about 105% would be max.

[latergator116]

I tried enlarging it using a bicubic algorithm, and then sharpening it. It looks much better than a plain scale, but it's not perfect.

Wow! thanks. I think I will use that one. It looks a lot better than the one I did.

[latergator116]

Hey! guess what? I was browsing a website on tigers and I happened to run across the same picture... at a higher resolution! So, I just scaled it down and now it looks great. Thanks for the help everyone...