3 Simple Ways to Improve Low Resolution Images (and Typography)

A creative tirck for my friendx.
It’s not a miracle, but these
helpful tips can improve the
quality of an image when
enlarging from a low-resolution
sample. It’s surprisingly simple
and quite easy. Fire up
Photoshop and check it out for
yourself!
At SOFTRONIC ZONE, i’ve written
extensively about how it’s
impossible to “enhance” images
and reclaim detail that is lost or
isn’t there to begin with. Are we
changing our tune? Nope,
there’s nothing magical about
these tips, except for the
improved results you’ll get when
you improve your own low
resolution images. Keep reading
and give it a shot!
A Better Way to Enlarge
Images
Here’s our image at our starting
point. This is zoomed to 100%,
only a paltry 150 pixels wide.
As we can see, this is painfully
low resolution. Let’s improve
things somewhat with a basic
enlargement.
Navigate to Image > Image Size.
Where it says “Resample Image”
you can change the type of anti-
aliasing used to enlarge and
smooth the image. Change it to
“Bicubic Smoother (best for
enlargement).” By default,
Photoshop uses “Bicubic.”
Notice the difference in the
Bicubic Smoother version on the
left versus the basic “Bicubic”
enlargement on the right.
Changing the type of anti-
aliasing can make a huge
difference the edges in your
image, helping to keep them
smoother, less jaggy. This can
make a big difference
Improving Detail in Enlarged
Images
Most Photoshop users don’t go
beyond RGB or CMYK. Today,
we’ll be using a different color
mode called Lab Color. Switch
any enlarged image (we’re
going to be using our image
from before) and change it to
Lab color by navigating to
Image > Mode > Lab Color.
Make sure you have a channels
panel open by going to Window
> Channels. Then select the
“Lightness” channel or click the
beside the a and b channels as
shown.
With “Lightness” selected, we’ll
perform a Smart Sharpen filter
by going to Filter > Smart
Sharpen.
The settings above worked for
our example quite well, but feel
free to fiddle around and find
your own. You’ll probably want
to keep your “Remove” setting
to “Gaussian Blur” as shown
above.
You can remain in Lab Color or
convert back to RGB. Unlike a
conversion between RGB and
CMYK, RGB converts perfectly to
Lab without any noticeable color
shift. In either color mode, select
your combined channelset by
pressing Ctrl + 2.
It’s not perfect, but the
comparison of before and after
is pretty dramatic. Our updated
image (on the right) has a much
richer skin texture and doesn’t
look like it was enlarged nearly
2000% from an image 150
pixels wide.
But Wait! Wild Typography
Appears!
Typography is a different beast
altogether. This low resolution
sample is set at only 100 pixels
wide and has some big, very
noticeable problems.
Resize your image to your
target size. Here, we’re
increasing the size by 10 times
and using the “Nearest
Neighbor” setting to keep our
edges jaggy. Don’t worry, this
will all make sense in a moment.
And it looks no different than
before! Let’s see what we can
do to change that.
Apply a Gaussian Blur by going
to Filter > Gaussian Blur and
using a setting that blurs the
edges without making the text
completely unreadable.
Your final type should look
something like this.
We’re now going to use a
“Threshold” adjustment layer.
Click the in the Layers Panel to
insert one.
Is it perfect? No. Is it less blurry
and jaggy? Yes, surprisingly so.
But any further improvement
would have to be done with the
brush tool and a lot of patience.
This can be a surprisingly helpful
trick for anyone that has to
work with typography and is
often stuck with low resolution
files.
While our “enhanced” image
cannot ever reclaim the detail of
the original high-resolution
image, we can, at a cursory
glance, say that we’ve improved
our image quality, both with the
typography and with the photo
of the girl. Not satisfied with
these tricks? Have some better
ones of your own? Sound off in
the comments section and let us
know what you use when you
have to improve a low quality
image.
Image Credit: Girl at the River
Near Momostenango by creative. . . .(':')