Help me find a tool to enlarge this image.

August 3, 2007 11:00 PM

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?
posted by jammnrose to Computers & Internet (16 answers total)

**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.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 11:11 PM on August 3, 2007

Response by poster: 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!
posted by jammnrose at 11:19 PM on August 3, 2007

Response by poster: Oh, by the way, the poster was titled "Sweet Sixteen". I probably should've mentioned that earlier.
posted by jammnrose at 11:20 PM on August 3, 2007

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.
posted by zadcat at 11:45 PM on August 3, 2007

Kinda looks like Liv Tyler, but yeah, not much you can do with an image that small.
posted by so_ at 11:53 PM on August 3, 2007

Liv Tyler has more of the horse look. You will never see her the same, ever again.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 12:17 AM on August 4, 2007

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.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:37 AM on August 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

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.
posted by Jeff Howard at 2:45 AM on August 4, 2007

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.
posted by liesbyomission at 2:49 AM on August 4, 2007

I was going to recommend the same thing as liesbyomission but he beat me to it while I was fiddling with the comment.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:21 AM on August 4, 2007

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.
posted by lychee at 3:46 AM on August 4, 2007

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.
posted by Wild_Eep at 9:02 AM on August 4, 2007

Did you try emailing allposters.com?
posted by rhizome at 10:26 AM on August 4, 2007

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.
posted by dpcoffin at 10:40 AM on August 4, 2007

I came here just to suggest Rasterbater.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 12:21 PM on August 4, 2007

B(oYo)BIES = so eponysterical. Sorry.
posted by anthill at 5:48 PM on August 4, 2007