[KineJapan] This is Huge: Upscaling Framegrabs to 300 dpi

[Peter Larson]

I've used Photoshop's upscaling feature (and others, I might have
tried them all now!) to upscale frame grabs from video and to upscale
photos from the internet.

Mostly been successful, but whenever I have had them printed on paper
the people at the printing company that are tasked with keeping one
from making terrible printing decisions have invariably complained. I
usually have had to add some noise to mask the regularity of the
upscale process and that usually works sufficiently well enough to
make it work.

Obviously, this is only an issue if you plan to print things on paper.

On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 6:12 AM Markus Nornes via KineJapan
<kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I was prepping a photo for an upcoming publication and made a huge discovery I'd like to share.
>
> I had a photo I grabbed off the internet that I really wanted to use. I secured the rights, but the online photo was only 72 dpi and 300 X 168 pixels. Small. Very small.
>
> So I met the photo's owner and we took the printed photo to a place to get a scan done. When I got home, I was shocked to find they scanned at 72 and used a setting that blew out all the greys. Incredible. It was such a production to get the scan done that I fired up Photoshop to play and see what could be done.
>
> I discovered that recent versions of Photoshop have the ability to upscale photos. There are a few techniques to wrap your head around, so it might be tough if you don't know Photoshop. But here is a tutorial that introduces some key moves:
>
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2Flprshxl46ac%3Fsi%3D2dgRkd4LVDXJTmTH&data=05%7C02%7Ckinejapan%40mailman.yale.edu%7Ce00ff7be0a564068479308dbf84cce8b%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638376780990626024%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=NE0BUnyinr0XokSqbZ61qGj9AILcgNn5HDhj162Etgw%3D&reserved=0
>
> There are a few other tutorials out there. This is one of the more useful of the bunch.
>
> (I notice that Topaz and some other software is offering upscaling functions as well.)
>
> This is huge for our field. Framegrabs from DVDs and most digital movie files are only 72 dpi; for printing on paper you need at least 300 and a size set that's at least as big as the printed page.
>
> Usually, when you expand the size of a small photo you get pixelation. Photoshop can now smooth it all out! I was able to bump up the tiny image to 300 dpi. There are various changes to the image, so it requires tweaking. And I didn't test this much, so there might be unwanted artifacts or changes to the image that would make image analysis tricky. But it works. I think it's a game-changer for publishing in film and media studies.
>
> Markus
>
>
>
>
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