Author Topic: New computer question  (Read 556 times)

Hawkmoon

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New computer question
« on: July 27, 2021, 06:03:11 PM »
Poking around in my late wife's iPhone4, I discovered a copy of the first photo I had of her. I used it as my desktop wallpaper for years, then lost it in a computer crash. I have no idea how this image got onto her phone, since the photo was taken years before we got her the iPhone. Nonetheless, I was overjoyed to find it, so I e-mailed it to myself.

Problem: it's TINY! Like 59x90 pixels tiny. So I'm on the hunt for a freeware image utility that can enlarge JPEG images and do a half decent job of smoothing out the pixellation. I've tried Faststone -- marginal. I tried the image enlarger in Windows Power Toys -- that didn't work at all.

Does anyone know of a good one?
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zxcvbob

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2021, 06:09:42 PM »
It doesn't exist.  Sorry.  You can maybe double the size, but image quality will fall apart the more you try to enlarge it because the information is just not there.

A *painter* (artist, not software) might could do something with it.
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Ben

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2021, 06:15:07 PM »
You're not gonna find anything that will make something that small into a sharp, larger image. It's like taking 100 pennies that you put into a 6"x6" box and then saying you want them just as close together in a 6'x6' box. you only have so many pixels to work with.

That actually sounds like a thumbnail vs the actual image. You should mount the phone to your computer as a drive and then search it for all images. You might end up finding whatever original made the thumbnail.
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Nick1911

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2021, 11:45:49 PM »
You're not gonna find anything that will make something that small into a sharp, larger image. It's like taking 100 pennies that you put into a 6"x6" box and then saying you want them just as close together in a 6'x6' box. you only have so many pixels to work with.

That actually sounds like a thumbnail vs the actual image. You should mount the phone to your computer as a drive and then search it for all images. You might end up finding whatever original made the thumbnail.

Totally agreed

WLJ

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #4 on: July 28, 2021, 12:14:06 AM »
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us".
- Calvin and Hobbes

cordex

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #5 on: July 28, 2021, 06:00:09 AM »
What everyone has posted is correct.

However, you might do some searches for AI upscaling and see what that gets you. It is similar to the idea of hiring a painter, but with a computer doing the work.

Ben

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #6 on: July 28, 2021, 08:18:21 AM »
What everyone has posted is correct.

However, you might do some searches for AI upscaling and see what that gets you. It is similar to the idea of hiring a painter, but with a computer doing the work.

Upscaling can work, but only up to a point. The interpolation algorithms used could probably do an acceptable rendition going from something like 800x600 to 1024x768, where there are an adequate amount of pixels to sample, but Hawkmoon has a teeny tiny base image. The best he'll get is teeny tiny to tiny.
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cordex

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #7 on: July 28, 2021, 09:55:39 AM »
Upscaling can work, but only up to a point. The interpolation algorithms used could probably do an acceptable rendition going from something like 800x600 to 1024x768, where there are an adequate amount of pixels to sample, but Hawkmoon has a teeny tiny base image. The best he'll get is teeny tiny to tiny.
It's surprising how good it can be (especially if it has facial features to work with).  It won't be perfect, but you can get a pretty good result and can even feed it through a couple of times. 

Try it yourself (there are a bunch out there with varying capabilities):
https://icons8.com/upscaler
https://vertexshare.com/image-upscaler.html
https://bigjpg.com/

Ben

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2021, 10:01:07 AM »
I've never used them. When I have some time later today, I'll try a few samples from your link. I'm interested to see what they do.

I've only worked with similar "missing data" interpolation in geographic datasets, where I had literally millions of points to turn into TIN models.
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Hawkmoon

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Re: New computer question
« Reply #9 on: July 28, 2021, 06:31:08 PM »
It's surprising how good it can be (especially if it has facial features to work with).  It won't be perfect, but you can get a pretty good result and can even feed it through a couple of times. 

Try it yourself (there are a bunch out there with varying capabilities):
https://icons8.com/upscaler
https://vertexshare.com/image-upscaler.html
https://bigjpg.com/

Thank you!

Tried the first one. At 4x magnification, I don't see any loss of resolution. (Of course, the original wasn't the greatest to begin with.) MUCH better!
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