Help me make my niece even cuter (in pictures).

October 14, 2012 7:00 PM

So my niece's first-year photos have almost all been taken on iphones (some on a 4, some on a 4S). I'd like to do some basic editing, have them printed, and assemble into a book for my brother. The resolution is horrible on a lot of the photos. Is there anything I can do to improve these pics? (Note: very basic skills only here but willing to learn/hire if necessary.)
posted by Kalatraz to sports, hobbies, & recreation (8 answers total)

Try importing all the photos into Google Picasa and then hit the I'm Feeling Lucky edit option. I was surprised at how often that one simple, very basic edit improved a lot of terrible photos from old cameras I had.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:06 PM on October 14, 2012

Can you clarify what you mean when you say the "resolution is horrible"? The iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera and the iPhone 4S has an 8 megapixel camera. That should be plenty of pixels to print high quality images in the sizes you want. (See megapixels to print size chart.)

If the images you have are lower resolution, it's because your brother (or someone) shrank them before e-mailing them to you. You should try to get the original full size digital copies.

If the images are poor quality for some other reason --- low light conditions, fast moving babies, etc --- then yes, Picassa or iPhoto or Photoshop Elements can be used to clean them up.
posted by alms at 7:16 PM on October 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can't add pixels that weren't originally there, but you can run sharpness filters in iPhoto.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:19 PM on October 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I'm with alms here, one of the saving graces of the iphone is that the cameras have some really ridiculous resolution, like 5 or 8 MP. Is Iphoto downgrading them or something similar?

Ask for the originals form the phone itself. My guess is that you'll be pleasantly surprised with the resolution.
posted by Sphinx at 12:24 AM on October 15, 2012

Alms is right -- check to make sure you've been e-mailed the full-size copies. But the resolution can also be pretty bad on iPhone photos if they were:
1) Taken with the front-facing camera
or 2) Taken using the digital zoom feature.

1 is an acceptable solution for taking self-portraits, but 2 should be avoided at all costs.
posted by EmGeeJay at 12:42 AM on October 15, 2012

Poor resolution can also come about as a result of cropping so nthing 'asking your brother for the original sized photo'.

If the photos really are low-res you can just print some of them smaller?
posted by Ziggy500 at 2:46 AM on October 15, 2012

The other problem that happens with camera phones is that people are often lax about keeping the lens of the camera clean, one greasy fingerprint on the lens will ruin any photo you take.

I agree with the above, get the full size image from whoever took the photos and try the sharpen feature in iPhoto (although there are drawbacks to that as well).
posted by HuronBob at 3:43 AM on October 15, 2012

Sorry, I think "resolution" was the wrong word to use here! I do have the original photos (not emailed or anything). Many of them look blurry, sort of like they are out of focus when printed at 4x6 but they look fine on the screen. Not from front-facing photo. I'm sure zoom was used on some of them.
posted by Kalatraz at 12:29 PM on October 17, 2012