Do you have a low resolution source image?

Richard_P

Hi all,

I'm trialling out a new piece of software for enlarging and improving the quality of low resolution source images. In about 25% of cases it makes it worse, in 50% of cases it makes the image look a lot better, and in the final 25% of cases the new image looks amazing.

Does anyone have a low resolution source image they want me to try out for them?

Richard

Forgiveness

That sounds interesting. This is very low resolution .jpeg, I wonder if camera raw photo would not be better for this?

Richard_P

Sorry, that's got all kinds of processing errors in there (look at the trees). Don't you have this in a normal quality (but low size) version?

Forgiveness

Sure thing, coming right up, straight, unprocessed, low version.

Forgiveness

 This is the best I can do on this one.

Richard_P

This is the output. It really needs a better quality photo to work from, but this might be useful:

Forgiveness

Thanks, definitely agree about needing a better photo to begin with. I like this for the abstracts. it's ok for impasto style work and perhaps impressionist image, but not a great photo reference. In a case like this I would use both the photo and being on location seeing with my own eye to help me, which is what I'm doing. I'm just trying to capture a good likeness and the spirit and mood of the scene. You have provided much better definition in the structure of the tree and hydro lines in your copy here.

Richard_P

Yes, I agree.

Anyone else?

MikeDerby

It will be wonderful if you can enhance this for me.  Thanks for trying.

Richard_P

This came out well:

MikeDerby

it really did.  can you send me the jpg?  

MikeDerby

it really did.  The enlarged jpg has a few pixelations but overall it is an excellent enhancement.

MyArtsClub

Impressive!

MyArtsClub

Could you please try this 70 years old photo of my parents who just got married. My mom here is just 18..

buddy

Can you try this?

Richard_P

This is about the best I could do of the first one (I had to play around with it a bit)

Richard_P

This came out well. The amount of detail it can recover in the face is amazing.. (right click on the image and select open image in new tab)

EDIT: It's too big to display the new one here.. I'll try to post the important bit.

Richard_P

MyArtsClub

It is really better now. Thank you.

buddy

Wow. Works very well. What is the software?

Richard_P

The trial version of Topaz software's Gigapixel AI. It uses artificial intelligence to try to reconstruct the image at higher resolutions.

broker12

Richart . . . this is very interesting.  I wish I'd had this 15 years ago.  That's when I started painting free for parents portraits of their children killed in the 911 wars.  Obviously, I had to (still do) work from family provided photos and, frankly, many of them are less than borderline quality.  I have used Photoshop to sharpen them up a bit, and it has helped, but it appears this is several steps above that.  Any chance you could email me and tell me where I could get this program (broker12 at yahoo).

Richard_P

It's not a secret, I have the 30 day trial version from here:
https://topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai/

shobhasartspeakz

I use this free service to enlarge image (not enhance) for printing, if anybody is interested - https://www.imageenlarger.com/ 

bhamhawker

Richard_P said:

The trial version of Topaz software's Gigapixel AI. It uses artificial intelligence to try to reconstruct the image at higher resolutions.

Do you use any of the other Topaz Labs plugins? I like messing around with their Simplify and Adjust stuff to get painterly looks on things before I paint them in real life.

Richard_P

No I haven't. I take it you have to pay for those as well?

Richard_P

If you give it a low quality image of a drawing the result can be absolutely amazing!

Dustin_Cropsboy

Richard_P said:

The trial version of Topaz software's Gigapixel AI. It uses artificial intelligence to try to reconstruct the image at higher resolutions.

Did the software work well enough to purchase?  I have a few photos I would like to upscale, and might give it a try.

Richard_P

I had a go at the last one after playing around with the lighting. It's too big to post here so I had to do a small section:

Richard_P

Still too big to upload without it being shrunk down a bit. But maybe it will help..

Dustin_Cropsboy

Thanks @Richard-P.  Did you run any de-noising with other programs on that image?  If not, I think I will download the trial and probably invest in it!

Richard_P

No, it has options to reduce blur and noise. I'd suggest try the trial (which doesn't add watermarks or size limits), and see what you think. For some images you have to play around a bit to get good results, whilst others work superbly.