Q&A: Can I Increase the Resolution of a Picture?
Is there some way to increase the resolution of a photo? Recently, I was given a floppy disk with seven photos on it. When I opened them in Adobe Photoshop they printed fine as small, billfold-size images, but as soon as I try to do anything larger they look absolutely terrible.
--Mike Vandenberg, Covington, Louisiana
In general, Mike, the answer is no. When a digital image is captured at a certain size, such as 640 by 480 pixels, there's a specific amount of visual information locked into the image file. If you try to increase the picture's resolution, or print it bigger than its ideal print size (between 200 and 300 pixels per inch), all you do is make the pixels bigger. The result is a blurry, blocky mess.
But you can get around this rule, to some extent. There are programs available that allow you to print images much larger than you normally could. However, these programs work best when trying to make high-resolution images really, really large. And even so, they tend to blur and soften the image--you lose any razor sharpness the picture originally had. They're somewhat less successful at making small images bigger. The most famous of this type of program is LizardTech Genuine Fractals. There's a new program, Extensis pxl SmartScale; but I haven't had a chance to try it yet, so I can't say how well it works.
In any event, the best recipe is to always shoot at your camera's highest resolution. And those old, 1997-era digital pictures will simply never look good printed at poster size. Sorry!
Ad Choices