Resizing images without losing clarity

[CMcInAZ]

I recieved pictures of a recent holiday in an email and when i tried to save them they saved as 320 x 240 meaning i can hardly see any of the detail in the photo. I uploaded photo's of my own and they are much larger 2048 x 1536. I am wondering if there would be any way to resize the smaller pictures to get them a similar size to the others without losing any of the clarity in the picture? I have tried Image -> Resize but it just results in a big blurry mess.

Any help is appreciated

[Mike Ryan]

There are methods outside of Paint.NET capable of this using a method called seam carving. Hopefully a simple Google search will find a usable seam carving tool. However, inside of Paint.NET you are going to lose clarity.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Mike: I think the OP wants to increase the size of the small images.

If I'm right the answer is no, you're always going to lose clarity because the number of pixels in the image is going to increase. PDN is going to do some fancy "averaging" of the original pixels to create data for the new pixels when you resize up in size. We call this resampling.

Here's what the help topic (http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/en/ImageMenu.html) says:

There are multiple types of resampling that you may choose. "Resampling" is the process of computing what the new pixels should be based on what the old pixels are. Some algorithms produce better looking results, but take longer to complete. It is recommended that you use the default option, "Best Quality," unless you have a specific need for and understanding of the other choices (Bilinear, Bicubic, and Nearest Neighbor). Best Quality will automatically choose either Bicubic or Super Sampling depending on the new size that you specify.

all that said, you're going to lose quality resizing up. Fact of life

[Mike Ryan]

Mike: I think the OP wants to increase the size of the small images.

Yeah, seam carving. Yay me! Actually, yay RB when he enables PC to enable this feature into PDN >.>

[Myrddin]

...all that said, you're going to lose quality resizing up. Fact of life

Quite correct:

david.atwell[/url]":3v2j08ky]An image is made up of pixels' date=' and when you resize, Paint.NET has to make up more pixels to fill the empty spaces resizing creates. So it does one of several different methods, depending on what you choose. But it can't guess at what you want - it has to make a calculation based upon what it has. And that very rarely looks good.[/quote']David later, in another post somewhere else, writes that even Photoshop, in its infinite capabilities, beyond an extent cannot avoid blurring.

With such a large increase in size (320 x 240 to 2048 x 1536 is an increase of 256%) would be next to impossible to avoid creating a 'big blurry mess'. Seam carving, laid mention to above, may be your solution, but how well is unbeknown to me.

[david.atwell]

Seam carving can't get close. You're making up 96% of the pixels - that is, it's going to be 96% guesswork - it's going to be a big, misshapen, blurry mess.

[LFC4EVER]

The best option for what you wish to do is to get Adobe Photoshop and the onOne Genuine Fractals 6 plugin. Its works pretty well for what you wish to accomplish.

[david.atwell]

No, that won't even do it. You'll still get a mess.

Guys, the data just isn't there. You can't create data that doesn't exist.