{"id":4577,"date":"2018-03-09T12:40:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T17:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bumblejax.com\/content\/?p=4577"},"modified":"2019-12-06T08:11:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T13:11:33","slug":"how-to-resize-images-without-losing-quality-for-printing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/how-to-resize-images-without-losing-quality-for-printing\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Resize Images Without Losing Quality For Printing"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you’ve taken that perfect photo in the perfect moment.\u00a0 A photo that would be impossible to duplicate.\u00a0 The problem is you want to print it large for a mounted print<\/a>, but for whatever reason, the resolution just isn’t there to produce a quality print.\u00a0 Perhaps the photo was taken using an old camera, or the photographer sent a low resolution photo and has disappeared or won’t provide the high resolution image (it happens!).\u00a0 Maybe the photo was taken using a phone camera and\/or edited using an app which can greatly diminish resolution.\u00a0 We also see customers that have uploaded their photos to Facebook or Instagram and have lost the original.\u00a0 The problem is that these services restrict the size of the image and resize it before posting it to their site.\u00a0 \u00a0This is a real problem for those that want to print their photos large.\u00a0 \u00a0Whatever the reason, it’s tough to tell a customer who has captured a cherished moment in their life that they can’t produce a quality print at the size they want (or in some cases, any size at all).<\/p>\n

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All is not lost!\u00a0 There are times when a solution can be found.\u00a0 We’ve been using software programs for years that attempt to resize a photo without losing quality and frankly most aren’t good.\u00a0 \u00a0There are several online services that promise to upsize your photo without losing quality, but none of them are good enough in our opinion.\u00a0 You can resize in Photoshop, but the native resize function there is inferior as well.\u00a0 The next step up are dedicated software programs that act as plugins in Photoshop or standalone software for Mac and Windows that can resize your photo with good results and in some cases great results.\u00a0 \u00a0The two that we like the best are Perfect Resize and Alien Skin Blowup.\u00a0 These two can provide superior results over the native Photoshop resize function and the free online services that are out there.<\/p>\n

The next generation of photo resizing uses machine learning (aka AI) and neural networks to continually improve the resizing algorithm to more intelligently add pixels to make photos sharper at larger sizes.\u00a0 Google has made the news in the past year or two with its RAISR technology to produce sharper images at smaller sizes in order to decrease disk space and networks strains.\u00a0 The billions of images sent across the internet and uploaded to online services consume a massive amount of resources.\u00a0 Here at Bumblejax, we’ve been experimenting with photo resizing using machine learning as well and the initial results are terrific.\u00a0 With our expertise in photo editing for optimal prints combined with AI photo resizing, we can often times produce great looking large prints where it was never possible before.<\/p>\n

If you have a digital photo from a social service like Facebook or Instagram, an old camera, etc and you need to print large we’re here to help!\u00a0 Please note though that while you don’t need to make a purchase with us to see the result, we can’t provide you the high res file for producing the print somewhere else.\u00a0 \u00a0We can provide a low res version or screenshot to show you the difference before making your decision and after you place the order can provide the enhanced file.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> Results can vary greatly.\u00a0 Some photos resize better than others and print size improvement typically varies from 25% to 50% over standard resizing methods and often times 100% improvement over no resizing method (in other words, being able to produce a print at twice the size).\u00a0 It just depends on the camera used, the exposure, how it was edited etc.\u00a0 We can let you know how large we can print after enhancing and reviewing the photo for you.\u00a0 Again, there is no charge for this we’d just ask that you be interested in purchasing a print from us.<\/p>\n

Here is one example using a low resolution photo.\u00a0 The screenshots show a portion of the image at actual print size in Photoshop at 20×12.25″.\u00a0 \u00a0It’s a little bit more difficult to decipher the differences with smaller screenshots, but you can see the original has a fair amount of pixelation and the max we could print the original would be about 15×9″.\u00a0 You can see in the images below that our photo resizing using AI is quite a bit better than the software programs currently available.\u00a0 First is the original, followed by Alien Skin Blowup, followed by Perfect Resize (Genuine Fractals), followed by the more intelligent AI method.\u00a0 For this particular photo we’d be comfortable printing up to\u00a0 about 25×15″ using the AI method which is about a 20% improvement over other resizing methods and about a 65% improvement over no resizing method.\u00a0 The Alien Skin Blowup software has been a bit better than Perfect Resize in our experience if you want to go that route.<\/p>\n

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Original image – no resizing.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Alien Skin Blowup @ 20×12.25″<\/p><\/div>\n

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Perfect Resize @ 20×12.25<\/p><\/div>\n

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Bumblejax AI Method @ 20×12.25<\/p><\/div>\n

How do I know if my photo is a good candidate for resizing?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This can be a tough question to answer, but generally speaking, any image produced with a phone camera, a cheaper point and shoot or pulled off a social sharing site can be a good candidate for resizing depending on what size print you need.\u00a0 Sometimes images captured with high-end DSLR cameras can be resized to produce very large prints, but this isn’t as common from our experience.\u00a0 The only surefire way to tell is to view the photo at actual print size in Photoshop using our method here<\/a>.\u00a0 If there is pixelation at the desired print size, resizing can be done.\u00a0 Please note that resizing can’t produce any size print you want.\u00a0 You’re never going to be able to resize an iPhone photo and get a 72″ print, but I will say that I’ve pushed a few of my iPhone photos to 50″ with a bit of AI Bumblejax magic with good results.\u00a0 The other part of the equation is completely subjective of course.\u00a0 What may be acceptable print quality to one may not be acceptable to another.\u00a0 We have seen many customers that are Ok with sub par\u00a0image resolution (we always send a digital proof before printing borderline photos) because it’s a photo they cherish and know they can’t reproduce again.\u00a0 On the other end, photographers reselling their work will almost never accept this kind of quality for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

Don’t have Photoshop?\u00a0 Not sure about resizing?\u00a0 Want us to work our magic for you?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Here is a quick way to find out if resizing might be necessary.\u00a0 Upload your photo to our order configuration page here<\/a>\u00a0(opens in new tab) and if the max print size (we auto calculate this for you -see screenshot below) is less than 40×30″ your photo may be a good candidate for resizing.\u00a0 If that is the case please contact us<\/a> with “photo resize” in the subject line and let us know the print size you desire the product you’d like and the filename (see screenshot below to see filename in our system).\u00a0 Please only contact us if you have an intention of ordering from us.\u00a0 It’s time consuming for us and we have to focus on paying or potentially paying customers.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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If our automated system says your Max Print Size is below 40×30″ it might be a good candidate for resizing.<\/p><\/div>\n

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If you’re not sure of the filename of your photo, you will see it in our system after you upload in Your Photos tab. Below each photo is the first part of the filename which you can provide us. If you have created an account with us before uploading we can find it for you.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So you’ve taken that perfect photo in the perfect moment.\u00a0 A photo that would be impossible to duplicate.\u00a0 The problem is you want to print it large for a mounted print, but for whatever reason, the resolution just isn’t there to produce a quality print.\u00a0 Perhaps the photo was taken using an old camera, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5130,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions\/5130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumblejax.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}