My family is always emailing me photos that are poor quality (fine for email and the web, but poor for print), and I want to retouch them so that they can print them. Most of the photos are usually taken with a digital camera and sent to me as JPEGs. Is a solution to low resolution JPEG problem, to print them out, scan them in at a larger size, and then correct from there?

-T

This situation can be quite a problem, especially if you hope to output higher quality prints. Low resolution in..... low resolution out is often the case. Sometimes you can fake it... to a point but very often you will a blurrier output than most people want at best. Since this is family and not clients then they might be more forgiving about the output.

You may want to check out a Photoshop plug-in called Genuine Fractals from a company called Altimera. It's a bit pricy for a plug in... but not a bad investment of you get a lot of internet photos that are low rez.

http://altamira-group.com/

Hi T,
Since I have been doing this work, I have become critical of photos that family send me and have this uncontrolable urge to correct them. I can certainly identify with you. :D

I would say that printing a low res and scanning it larger is an absolute last resort. Everytime you print and rescan you loose detail, so I am not sure you are gaining much that way although I have suggested the same thing in another thread on how to boost the resolution on a web res photo. I haven't tried it so I can't say if it would be acceptable or not. My idea was in use as backgrounds or non essential areas to try that. With a family photo you may want to try and get a higher res to begin with. I would just ask if they have a larger size that they could e-mail you. If you can't get a larger res copy, then I would say give it a try and see what you get.
If you do, please let us know how it turns out. :)
DJ

T,

Are they happy with the print made from the original file? Some people think they are just fine (I'm referring to the resolution here). If they're happy with it, and it isn't for potential customers to see, I wouldn't be too concerned with it even though *I* might not be happy with it. Just a thought.

Ed