Higher Resolution

[mya1k9]

Hi,

I'm trying to upload photos for my memories book to add to my photopass pictures. I have a red bar on all of my pictures that I took with my camera, that means I need to find a higher resolution for all these photos, they look fine to me and I don't have a clue how to make them into a higher resolution. Can you help me so I can make my book? I've posted on the photography board but not getting any replies so I thought I would try here.

 

[stargazertechie]

Unfortunately, you can't make them a higher resolution after the fact.

Check your camera settings to ensure that you're shooting in the highest resolution possible next time, but what's done is done

 

[POOHsie]

I agree with PP. You can't add resolution to your picture once it's taken. To try to stretch a low resolution picture to a bigger size, you will blow out the detail in your picture and it will be visually unacceptable. Your camera resolution setting right now may be 640 x 480 or 1024 x 768. That's good enough for small size pictures that you will only look at on a computer screen. But if you want to have prints, or want to enlarge the pictures, or both together, you need to set your camera resolution setting higher.

If you want good 4 x 6-inch prints, set the camera to 1600 x 1200 or higher. If you want good quality 5 x 7-inch prints, set the camera to 2048 x 1536 or higher. These pictures will take up more space on your storage card. Maybe you should carry a spare card in case one gets full before you expected.

http://sync.sympatico.ca/How-To/Dig...ine=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=False

 

[chartle]

Hi,

I'm trying to upload photos for my memories book to add to my photopass pictures. I have a red bar on all of my pictures that I took with my camera, that means I need to find a higher resolution for all these photos, they look fine to me and I don't have a clue how to make them into a higher resolution. Can you help me so I can make my book? I've posted on the photography board but not getting any replies so I thought I would try here.

They may look good on the screen but what do they look like printed out the same size as they will be printed for the book.

Something else that can effect resolution is if you crop a photo.

 

[BigYellowShoes]

What kind of camera did you use?

 

[mya1k9]

A canon powershot. It's a new camera and I guess I didn't have the resolutions set right. It looks like there is no way to fix it after the fact. I guess I'll just have to make my book from my photopass pics only, which I really wasn't to impressed with. Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

 

[BigYellowShoes]

A canon powershot. It's a new camera and I guess I didn't have the resolutions set right. It looks like there is no way to fix it after the fact. I guess I'll just have to make my book from my photopass pics only, which I really wasn't to impressed with. Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

"Live and learn"....very true words....we learned a lot from our trip this past August.....I'm sure your book will turn out beautifully!

 

[POOHsie]

A canon powershot. It's a new camera and I guess I didn't have the resolutions set right. It looks like there is no way to fix it after the fact. I guess I'll just have to make my book from my photopass pics only, which I really wasn't to impressed with. Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

One thing you could do is actually print the pictures you really want, at their same (small) size. Take those prints and scan them into your computer at 200% (or more) depending on the size you want them to be, and save those new files with new filenames. Use those new picture files for your memories book. They will have enough resolution, but won't look super-great because they were low resolution files in the first place.

It's a project in itself, but you could have the pictures you really wanted. If you don't know how to scan and save pictures, maybe you could have a friend help, as a favor to you.

 

[ktlm]

Did you do something to them or size them after you downloaded them from your camera's memory card? I can't imagine that a Cannon Powershot would have any photos that could not be used on the photopass website. I use a Cannon Powershot ( my previous and current) and I haven't ever changed the resolution on the camera from whatever the camera was set on when it came out of the box, and I've never had any trouble using them for the photopass books. If you haven't wiped them off your memory card, you might try downloading them again, and see if that helps. Maybe the software you used to load and save them on the computer did something in its settings and that needs to be adjusted. The photopass site sometimes acts up and glitches too. You might just wipe out whatever you have uploaded to photopass and start over. I would try moving them to a different folder on your computer, and then try to upload them to photopass and see what happens. I can't believe that any photos from a newer Canon powershot would be a resolution too low for Photopass. I have to think it is either a glitch with photopass, or something about the way they are stored on your computer.

 

[chartle]

One thing you could do is actually print the pictures you really want, at their same (small) size. Take those prints and scan them into your computer at 200% (or more) depending on the size you want them to be, and save those new files with new filenames. Use those new picture files for your memories book. They will have enough resolution, but won't look super-great because they were low resolution files in the first place.

It's a project in itself, but you could have the pictures you really wanted. If you don't know how to scan and save pictures, maybe you could have a friend help, as a favor to you.

This will just make a bad situation worse. By printing and scanning you will lose even more detail in the photo through generation loss.

If the photobook website excepts the photo just upload it and expect it to look not its best. I have a feeling they may not except an obvious low res pic because too many people who don't understand resolution at all would complain that Disney messed up their book and wanted it done right.

You can up the resolution of a photo in software like paint.net a freeware program, but it really doesn't make it any higher res.

The simplest way it would do it is lets say the resolution was 200x400 and you wanted 400x800. It would just make every pixel twice as high and twice as wide. So the black dot that your kids eye is now just a black dot 2 by 2.

Some software though can do a slightly better job by analyzing the colors of the photo and make a better decision on what the colors of the new dots should be but its not prefect. Also I have never had to do this so I'm not sure what programs can, maybe the higher end photo editing like Photoshop but there maybe some open source free program to do it.

Again its not going to be perfect just slightly better.

 

[chartle]

Did you do something to them or size them after you downloaded them from your camera's memory card? I can't imagine that a Cannon Powershot would have any photos that could not be used on the photopass website. I use a Cannon Powershot ( my previous and current) and I haven't ever changed the resolution on the camera from whatever the camera was set on when it came out of the box, and I've never had any trouble using them for the photopass books. If you haven't wiped them off your memory card, you might try downloading them again, and see if that helps. Maybe the software you used to load and save them on the computer did something in its settings and that needs to be adjusted. The photopass site sometimes acts up and glitches too. You might just wipe out whatever you have uploaded to photopass and start over. I would try moving them to a different folder on your computer, and then try to upload them to photopass and see what happens. I can't believe that any photos from a newer Canon powershot would be a resolution too low for Photopass. I have to think it is either a glitch with photopass, or something about the way they are stored on your computer.

I'm thinking this also. I think my latest camera has a web mode resolution but then the next higher is like 2 mp which should be plenty and I know it didn't come out of the box that way.

I would go back to the card also. I think something happened to the pics during some process. You may need help from someone who has a better idea on how photos are stored and edited.

 

[mya1k9]

Thank you very much. It is a new camera and I was monkeying around with the buttons trying to figure out what did what and may have changed the resolution. All of my pics are 640 by 480 and I guess that isn't good enough. I figured out how to reset the resolution so I moved it up to the M1 setting so this doesn't happen again but honestly I am not camera or computer savvy by any stretch of the imagination so I guess I'll need some outside help!! Thanks alot for the replies!

 

[boBQuincy]

I am sorry to hear about your photos. The same thing happened to my sister-in-law when she was taking photos of our wedding! After that I asked her to please set her camera to the highest resolution possible and buy more memory cards if necessary (they are inexpensive compared to low resolution photos of a priceless vacation).

We never know when we might want to get a big print of a photo, it pays to use all the resolution our cameras can deliver.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this to our photography board in case the folks over there have additional suggestions.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

You can supplement your Photopass photos with other people's pictures. There is a thread over on the scrapbook board called Anyone have a photo of... that has lots of pictures people have offered up for use. You can also ask there (or here) for any other specific photos you want. Obviously, they won't replace pictures of your family, but they can replace generic shots.

Another option would be to build larger pictures as a collage with your 640x480 shots. I'd say that the lowest reasonable resolution for printing is about 180dpi. A 640x480 picture would be printable up to about 3.5"x2.7". If the memories book doesn't let you use 640x480 pictures, build a larger blank picture and copy the smaller pictures into it.

 

[thomas998]

Before you completely ditch your photos there is one last thing you might try... there is special software that can enlarge photos and get you better results than simply changing resolution in your photo editing software. The following link is for a plug-in that works in photoshop, lightroom and aperture...

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite/perfect-resize/?ind&gclid=CMzJxNvDvasCFcPt7QodB20vxQ

I don't know if you have any of those editing tools but if you do it might get your good enough results that you would use some of your photos... I've used it for enlargement before and it worked fairly well... never tried to blow up a photo that was as small as yours so I'm not sure what results you might get... but it might be worth a try.... you can download it for a 30 day trial that would allow you to see if it was going to work.

 

[chartle]

Before you completely ditch your photos there is one last thing you might try... there is special software that can enlarge photos and get you better results than simply changing resolution in your photo editing software. The following link is for a plug-in that works in photoshop, lightroom and aperture...

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite/perfect-resize/?ind&gclid=CMzJxNvDvasCFcPt7QodB20vxQ

Just so you know it also looks like its a stand alone product so you don't have to have those programs listed to use the trial.

 

[thomas998]

Just so you know it also looks like its a stand alone product so you don't have to have those programs listed to use the trial.

Should make it even better for the OP... I tried an earlier version of it a few years back, it was a plug-in for photoshop... I assumed it was still just a plug-in.

 

[photo_chick]

One thing you could do is actually print the pictures you really want, at their same (small) size. Take those prints and scan them into your computer at 200% (or more) depending on the size you want them to be, and save those new files with new filenames. Use those new picture files for your memories book. They will have enough resolution, but won't look super-great because they were low resolution files in the first place.

It's a project in itself, but you could have the pictures you really wanted. If you don't know how to scan and save pictures, maybe you could have a friend help, as a favor to you.

Don't do this. It's bad. You're final prints will be a copy of a copy of a copy.

You actually can add pixels with the right software. Perfect Resize (used to be genuine fractals) does it pretty well. But just your average every day photo editing software will make a mess of it.