Enlarging photos/pictures.

[astraltrader]

Hi everybody. Before we go any further I am not brilliant with computers but manage to get by if things dont get too complicated!
I am after a bit of advice if anyone feels they can help.
I have thousands of pictures and photos stored [mainly of warships]. I am looking for the cheapest possible programme that will allow me to enlarge some of them. I would like Photozoom but it is way too expensive for me at present.

Does anybody know of a cheap or free programme that will allow me to enlarge pictures??

I would appreciate any suggestions!

[Sam_Zen]

Check out IrfanView

[WellOiledPC]

Welcome to the Forum, astraltrader. Perhaps you know this already, but again, maybe it helps...

You can get by with slight enlargements - maybe 20 to 30% of your images. The larger you enlarge your warships, the more fuzzy they will look. This is of course software-independent

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You can get by with slight enlargements - maybe 20 to 30% of your images. The larger you enlarge your warships, the more fuzzy they will look. This is of course software-independent

Not all software will give the same results. Whether PhotoZoom is worth paying for is debatable. You could try Smilla Enlarger, which is free.

[Sam_Zen]

According to Paintshop Pro, the Bicubic resample algoritm is the best when enlarging bitmaps.

[WellOiledPC]

Not all software will give the same results. Whether PhotoZoom is worth paying for is debatable. You could try Smilla Enlarger, which is free.

Well astraltrader began his post by saying that he isn't brilliant with computers and I wanted to convey to him that fuzziness is inevitable, whatever software you use (software-independent). Depending on a software's algorithm, the results would be better or worse.

[hoangpham1]

Hi everybody. Before we go any further I am not brilliant with computers but manage to get by if things dont get too complicated!
I am after a bit of advice if anyone feels they can help.
I have thousands of pictures and photos stored [mainly of warships]. I am looking for the cheapest possible programme that will allow me to enlarge some of them. I would like Photozoom but it is way too expensive for me at present.

Does anybody know of a cheap or free programme that will allow me to enlarge pictures??

I would appreciate any suggestions!

I am using focus magic to enlarge my pictures and I am quite pleasure with it. It cost $45, but the result is quite good.

Here is the link:

http://www.focusmagic.com/

[Malcolm]

Another tool you could try is GIMP. It has a lot of functions that you might find useful.

[derniwi]

What sizes have the oictures currently and to what size do you like to enlarge them? How did you get the pictures (i.e. did you photograph them with a digital camera)?

[Mij]

Some programs are better than others however. I have been quite impressed with Photo Editor.
For the attachment I took a small 300x225 pixel clip and resampled to double the size (with sharpen) in Irfanview and Photo editor. Irfanview is the top image with Photo editor below.

[Mikey]

I am starting with a high-res image of a diagram that really should be printed on a 17x22 sheet, but all I have is 8 1/2 x 11 printers. Is there an easy way to divide the image into 4 pieces that will match up exactly when printed on 4 pages and joined together?

[Mij]

Mikey
I think you have posted in the wrong place. What you are asking is not what this thread was discussing. You should really have posted in the Support section.
However what you are asking is something that has been discussed several times before. Try this thread.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You can easily crop the image into four quarters and print each portion on one sheet. The "match up exactly" bit is the hard part. You're likely to have to do some careful work with a scalpel or craft knife.

For work like this, I always recommend using a DTP program, which is designed for printing posters. Even the free version of PagePlus can do this job well. Just place your drawing on 17" x 22" page, and use the Print Preview to tile the sheets with the desired overlap.

Another way is to save the image as a PDF, much better if it was produced in a drawing program, as it's a vector format, then print it from PDF-XChange.

IrfanView can do many things, but it's not the best tool for this job.