Computer, Enlargenate and Enhancerize
May 30, 2023 12:31 AM   Subscribe

My darling spouse had a scan or photo of a photo from her childhood that meant a lot to her, but unfortunately the only copy of it I can find is on her Facebook, and it's literally a thumbnail, 113x114 pixels. What with the internet and AI and all, is there a utility I can upload the thumbnail to that will enlarge & 'fill in' the image, creating a copy that is of appropriate size and resolution for printing?

Stuff:

1) I do not know the provenance of the image, no idea what member of spouse's extended family may have a proper scan of the image or the original photo. Would like to surprise spouse with a nice copy, so can't ask.

2) A larger copy may be on their pretty old dead MacBook; I have a kit for accessing PC hard drives for data recovery, but I don't know if it would be compatible with the MacBook. Thoughts? Live very far away from an Apple store, can't say there is much of value on the hard drive that justifies dropping a lot of money to get the hard drive pulled & copied.

3) If there is an enlarge/enhance AI web option, preference would be something that improves and builds on what is in the image, not make it look fancy or give it that weird AI gauziness. Also, free?

4) Thumbnail is square. The original is a 30+ year old snapshot, so 3x5 or whatever actual photos were. I would take a sharp square photo, but if there's something that could extrapolate from the image and fill it out to make a photo of the traditional image ratio, that would be the bee's knees. Maybe that's asking too much, I don't know, that's why I'm asking!
posted by Alvy Ampersand to Computers & Internet (12 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I don't think the thumbnail, which has only about 12,000 pixels, is going to have enough information to enlarge to the size you want, even using AI techniques.

You should be able to pull the MacBook hardrive and use your kit to access it. I think Windows may be able to deal with the filesystem (I'm not 100% sure), but local computer repair folks might be able to help there if your kit doesn't help. Worth it for this sentimental image, I believe.

A last ditch thing to try: print the thumbnail, then enlarge it optically on a copy machine, then scan that - but I think it might be blocky to do it that way.

Also, unless you think relatives would "blab" you could send email to individual extended family members to ask about this image
posted by TimHare at 12:44 AM on May 30, 2023 [2 favorites]


2) If this is an older macbook (pre-2012 ish), the hard drive will be removable and you can use your data recovery kit. Newer macbooks have all the components (including SSD storage) soldered in place, which complicates the process; you will probably need to bring it to an Apple store. You can check whether your macbook model has a removable hard drive on this page

3) I can't guarantee there is no AI gauziness, but waifu2x is the best free option for this task. Choose the photo mode, no noise, and the highest upscale multiplier. You can feed the result back into the AI for an even larger image. It's temporarily down now for maintenance but it should return soon.

4) One of the art AI, like Midjourney or DALL-E 2, could do this... but it's just as achievable using Photosho's clone stamp tools, if you're willing to spend a couple of hours at the computer (or ask a savvy relative to do it).
posted by wandering zinnia at 12:58 AM on May 30, 2023 [5 favorites]


A long shot, but you could also try a reverse image search, for example with https://tineye.com/, to see if there are any other matches online, that may have a link to a higher quality version.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 1:05 AM on May 30, 2023 [4 favorites]


Depending on what "dead" means for the old MacBook, you might be able to boot it in target disk mode. You'll need to find a power supply for the old laptop and a USB/USB-C/Thunderbolt cable to connect it to a "live" laptop; but if it works, it's the simplest way of accessing files on the old drive.
posted by Johnny Assay at 4:50 AM on May 30, 2023 [6 favorites]


Nthing that if you can get a better version of the file, you'll have something to work with, and depending on how "old" the mac, it might be as easy as unscrewing the case, popping out the drive, plugging it in, downloading an HFS utility, and copying the file over. Figure out what model of macbook and go to youtube, there are teardown videos for everything.
posted by rikschell at 6:23 AM on May 30, 2023 [1 favorite]


Topaz Gigapixel Ai is surprisingly good. I have a license if you want to memail me the photo, I can upscale.

But yeah, generally I agree, getting a better version is the best option.
posted by gregr at 7:57 AM on May 30, 2023 [2 favorites]


"A larger copy may be on their pretty old dead MacBook; I have a kit for accessing PC hard drives for data recovery, but I don't know if it would be compatible with the MacBook. Thoughts? Live very far away from an Apple store, can't say there is much of value on the hard drive that justifies dropping a lot of money to get the hard drive pulled & copied."

How old is pretty old? If the drive isn't soldiered to the motherboard and can be attached to a SATA to USB reader or something, then it should be possible to read the drive in Linux or Windows unless it's been encrypted. If they've used full disk encryption you're going to need to have the password to decrypt it too, I believe.
posted by jzb at 9:54 AM on May 30, 2023 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks so much for your replies, everyone!

Tineye/Reverse Image Search did not come up with anything, unfortunately.

Waifu2x did a pretty impressive job rescaling the image. Some gauzy/pastel aesthetic, but it actually sort of works with the photo, just needs a little touch up, really.

gregr: Thanks! Unfortunately MeMail doesn't do attachments, but I have the original thumbnail posted here if you wanted to give it a go and email me the result. I put the waifu2x rescales in there too, if anyone is curious.

The MacBook was purchased new around 2008; I've been dawdling on pulling the hard drive due to expectation of a hassle/laziness, but I really should poke around it. IIRC the issue was mostly that the screen conked out & I couldn't get it to work with an external display, so for all I know the hard drive is 100% okay.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:17 PM on May 30, 2023 [4 favorites]


You may want to get it as large as you can and then get someone to make a painting from it (Etsy?)
posted by cda at 2:01 PM on May 30, 2023 [4 favorites]


If it's a mechanical hard drive, the sooner you try to pull the data from it the better. Leaving one to sit can allow some of the components to seize which would make recovery more difficult.
posted by Aleyn at 8:41 PM on May 30, 2023 [1 favorite]


In case anyone is curious, here's the upscaled version I sent Alvy Ampersand. I ran the thumbnail through both Topaz Gigapixel Ai and Topaz Photo Ai, and Photo Ai did a bit better of a job.
posted by gregr at 5:52 AM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Update: Hooked up MacBook HDD to the Linux laptop with no problems and while the files on it are accessible, it seems like the photo wasn't saved to it, so thank goodness for AI upscaling. This isn't a time-sensitive thing, so I might do some (Respectful and non-intrusive) detectiving and maybe even give cda's suggestion of reproducing the photo in paint a go myself! Thanks, everyone!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:29 PM on May 31, 2023 [1 favorite]


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