Comments on: Help me find a tool to enlarge this image.

Question: Help me find a tool to enlarge this image.

jammnrose — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:00:03 -0800

What would be the best tool/program to enhance/enlarge/de-noise this image. I am looking for a way to resize this so I can have it made into a poster while still having decent quality. Any ideas?

By: B(oYo)BIES

B(oYo)BIES — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:11:12 -0800

**IMAGE Is NSFW

I doubt you will be able to blow up this image to poster size without it looking like shit. But I am pretty sure that somebody can find a larger image that could possibly be blown up to size.

Can you give us more information about this picture? The face looks familiar, but I have never been good at identifying people.

By: jammnrose

jammnrose — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:19:21 -0800

All I can say is that this image used to be for sale on allposters.com but has been discontinued and cannot be found on their website anymore. I have had no luck finding this poster anywhere else either.

She is probably a model for miscellaneous things.

If someone has this poster, I would be interested in acquiring some hi-res scans + stitching. Thats a long shot though.
If you can manage to find this pic in a larger format online, please link me. Thanks!

By: jammnrose

jammnrose — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:20:59 -0800

Oh, by the way, the poster was titled "Sweet Sixteen". I probably should've mentioned that earlier.

By: zadcat

zadcat — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:45:48 -0800

There is not enough detail in that jpeg to print out decently at 8.5x11, much less poster size. No graphic tool can do magic on an image that's too small, too overexposed and without enough data to work with.

If you really must have this as a poster, set up a query on ebay which will ping you when something becomes available.

By: so_

so_ — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 23:53:52 -0800

Kinda looks like Liv Tyler, but yeah, not much you can do with an image that small.

By: B(oYo)BIES

B(oYo)BIES — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:17:43 -0800

Liv Tyler has more of the horse look. You will never see her the same, ever again.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:37:59 -0800

If you're really serious about this, I think the right way to go is to vectorize it. The result, if handled well, won't look like a photograph but it could look very good, and maybe a bit artsy, and vector drawings can be scaled to any size.

Ideally you'd do it by hand, but that would take a lot of work, and you'd need to know how to go about it. I've been messing with that kind of thing recently (using Flash 9), and it takes a lot of effort. But once you're done, the result can be quite spectacular.

By: Jeff Howard

Jeff Howard — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:45:20 -0800

The file is too small to enlarge to poster size but you don't want to enlarge the file, you want to enlarge the image. I think it's possible.

Try using a digital SLR camera to photograph the image off an LCD monitor. You'll need to shoot from a tripod and turn off the flash. Use a few different shutter speeds to find the exposure that works best. Use the largest file size and highest quality your camera supports. Also, photograph the image at a slight angle so that when you rotate it to vertical in an image editing program, it'll smooth out any moire problems. (You can also use this trick if you ever have to scan images from print).

Then I'd bring the photograph into Photoshop (use whatever image editing program you like) to enlarge to poster size. With a good camera it'd be pretty easy to resize this to maybe 20x30 at 150dpi. A judicious blend of median noise filters and unsharp masks should clear any pixelation and make an adequate poster if you're looking at it from across the room.

By: liesbyomission

liesbyomission — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:49:33 -0800

Try Rasterbator. It takes an image, and you select the size of the final image. It gives you a multipage PDF to print out. It blows up the image and uses dots to do so, like old newspaper photos, kind of. It's worth a shot.

By: BrotherCaine

BrotherCaine — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:21:55 -0800

I was going to recommend the same thing as liesbyomission but he beat me to it while I was fiddling with the comment.

By: lychee

lychee — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 03:46:24 -0800

I vectorized a photo into a large poster for a birthday present recently. For someone who's familiar with Illustrator or another vector program, it's simple enough. Of course, the more life-like you want it, the more time-intensive it would be.

I triple the Rasterbator idea, perhaps on photo or glossy paper to make it a step above just a bunch of printouts taped together.

By: Wild_Eep

Wild_Eep — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 09:02:00 -0800

I remember hearing of a tool called Genuine Fractals (review) which is a plugin for Photoshop.

that is supposed to take a small picture and turn it into a given size. It is powered by magic, according to my designer clients.

By: rhizome

rhizome — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:26:28 -0800

Did you try emailing allposters.com?

By: dpcoffin

dpcoffin — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:40:09 -0800

Email me for a download link to a 9MB zip of a 36MB, 20x30x150ppi tiff version of your image, for an "adequate poster if you're looking at it from across the room."

Took about 2 minutes using SizeFixerXL, with whom I am not associated...

I'll leave the link up over the weekend.

By: flibbertigibbet

flibbertigibbet — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:21:04 -0800

I came here just to suggest Rasterbater.

By: anthill

anthill — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:48:45 -0800

B(oYo)BIES = so eponysterical. Sorry.