iso software that can "enlarge/enhance and augment" images
patience55
Posts: 7,006
On the budget of hobbyist ... does anybody know of anything? I have programs that can simply enlarge/enhance what is there but have possibly been watching too much scifi and the mention of "augmenting" bringing small areas up quite a bit in size with excellent details.
Post edited by patience55 on

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I'm sure my brain is total mush...but what exactly are you looking for...image editing or something that probably belongs in that other thread?
If it's image editing...I'd say GIMP with the G'MIC and Liquid Rescale plugins.
It would possibly help if I had mentioned "images" ... software to enlarge a small area of an image and augment it ... I'm sure I saw something for about $50 "once" which was supposed to figure out from available pixels what would likely be the missing pieces in enlarging the image to be nicely detailed.
SmithMicro spruiks something that does it
Photo Zoom but no offers lately
I've tested PhotoZoom and a few others, even with the most expensive ones I couldn't see much difference in quality between what they could do and what IrfanView can do. Here's a test comparing PhotoZoom Classic (default settings), PS6 and IrfanView (400% enlargement).
EDIT: corrected typo "difference" > "much difference".
Thank you for the comparisons.
I had tried some relatively expensive free trials and came to the same conclusion; not much difference.
That sounds like what I was remembering, thanks.
Looking at those images, it looks to me that PhotoZoom has applied a sharpen mask to the final image to give the illusion of more detail, but you should get the same affect on PS or any other editing software (eg Gimp) using a sharpen mask. At the end of the day, when an image is zoomed in, it can only use the data available, it can not add details it does not know about. If you zoom in on small unreadable text, it will not become readable. That can only be done on Star Trek where the writers do not have to worry about "realism".
http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/
Looks interesting ... downloaded trials to try over the weekend, thanks.
I have seen too many crime detective shows enhancing grainy surveillance footage I think which has made me gullible.
Yeah, sometimes you get the impression they could take an old Polaroid snapshot of a house from the outside and tell you if there's a gun on a basement shelf by the reflection off a belt buckle of a guy inside at the top of the basement stairs.
The samples of the blowup program do look good. Important is if it can reproduce those results with real users, rather than in the few examples they provide. Note that with this software it is about reducing the artifacts that are introduced when zooming into a picture, but if you look at the samples, it does not add detail. So you could not zoom in on a tiny face in a picture, and then be able to identify the person.
One thing I've learned with Photoshop, and likely applies to others, is don't enlarge all at once...do it in small 5% or so increments.
Don't know why...just somehting I read..maybe in one of Deke Mclleland's books.
(as for software, If you're a Costoc member..they have Photoshop Element packs for like $40...my parents got it...Looks like Amazon has it for $60 on sale right now..or if you don't mind going a bit older, ver 11 for $40
Mr. Harry Nyquist and Mr. Claude Shannon look at you and silently shake heads.
There are a few programs that compute the local fractal dimension of the image and generate random details with the appropriate fractal dimension which allow some kind of limited zooming which looks right but, in general, the only thing that is "enhanced" is the level of mathematical and scientific analphabetism of the general population.
Perfect Resize from onOne is one of the best.
If you are into photography the whole suite is really great.
That's an interesting idea. Will keep in mind.