major crop = poor quality

[sharonmichele]

Image attached is from a business function that I photographed recently- the man on the right passed away suddenly and my client wants to use this picture cropped to a headshot. I have the raw file but with this much cropping I am losing a lot of quality- any suggestions on improving the resolution and sharpness?

Thanks for any suggestions (1st time poster)!

Sharon

[TommyO]

Hello Sharon and welcome to RP. Hopefully, you will find the feedback good and helpful.

Regarding the problem, it could simply be the software you're using. Many applications don't allow for "resampling" of the image. Basically, a method of adding detail by looking at adjacent pixels, and adding more pixels with some color variation to fill in the voids as we crop and enlarge.

Many are also not aware that pixels also have varying sizes. As we enlarge that head area, we need to shrink the pixels so it won't look pixelated and add some more to keep the size the same (thus the voids).

Anyone here can do this very effectively in Photoshop for you. If you cannot post the full size image on an external site, we can communicate with you via email.

Just click my name, send me either a "private message" or "email" with your email information. We can swap the file and get it back to you very quickly. This can also be done with most anyone on the forum if they wish to help you. (it's free of course )

[ktg222]

So, since when is RP doing free retouching for people? I thought this was a site to help people learn the craft, not do it for them. Doug?

k

Anyone here can do this very effectively in Photoshop for you. If you cannot post the full size image on an external site, we can communicate with you via email.

Just click my name, send me either a "private message" or "email" with your email information. We can swap the file and get it back to you very quickly. This can also be done with most anyone on the forum if they wish to help you. (it's free of course )[/QUOTE]

[TommyO]

I often raise a few peoples' eyebrows when I go back and forth, one day defending the site saying we don't do free stuff, only to do one myself later. I see many others do the same thing though. It seems to vary on how busy we are and the sight is.

However, I simply don't consider a simple crop a retouch. And, by sharing the file and problems it gives us some insight into what others are facing as everyday issues. If it turns into something else, I have no problem in saying no. But, her post/request for support sounds very reasonable.

[0lBaldy]

Tommy we all know you are just a sucker for a pretty face!!
(as a lot of us are)

[TommyO]

Well, that could be... I think I just need something to take my attention away from the economy though. And, I just don't have any good projects going on, so I look here for some. But, even here it seems to be pretty slow.

Hopefully, we (I) haven't scared Sharon off with all of our (my) ranting....

[sharonmichele]

Thanks for the offer to help- it's a nice welcome to the board- it can be intimidating to post to a new board so it was great to be welcomed so helpfully!

I am using Photoshop CS and shot this in raw with a 5mp camera. I used the standard photoshop steps to create an acceptable version of the image- started in Bridge and processed as the largest image I could, then cropped and sharpened in Photoshop CS.

My desire was to find out if there is something I'm missing that might make the image better resolution/sharpness wise. (I've attached the cropped version) I'm wanting to be able to print this up to an 8x10 if possible and at a 4x5 size I'm seeing some artifacts, esp around his jacket and head and it's not as sharp as I'd like. This will never be an ideal image due to the circumstances it was created in but, seeing as this will be the last portrait of this fine gentleman, I would like to make it the best I can. What I was really wondering is if there is anything out there that can take an image with limited resolution and extrapolate a higher resolution image from it?

FYI I'm not concerned with a free resolution- if there is a service that does this for a fee my client would pay.

Thanks!
Sharon

[TommyO]

Sharon,
I tried to find one of my images that was taken with a similar resolution and relative ratio of subject to image size that I could play with. It happens to be of a seagull.

Anyway, when I crop to the subject and don't change resolution, I get pixelation (as expected). However, when I crop, double the resolution and use bicubic smoother, I don't get much at all. So, without trying anything else (like denoise techiques, etc) why don't you check how you cropped and what algorithm you used (if any). Bicubic alone does not always produce the best image; bicubic smoother is better when upsizing.

At that point you could use some denoise techniques to enhance it bit further. I often recommend Photoshops built-in filter Reduce Noise since it's free. It can work very well and includes sharpening as well as jpg & color noise reduction in one step. But all of the other third-party utilities do equally well or better also.

Here is an example of the seagull image. Hopefully, sizing for the web has not reduced the ability to see the difference.
Left most - original to show relative size;
2nd - crop with no res change;
3rd - 2nd image zoomed in to show pixelation;
Right - crop zoomed in, res double, bicubic smoother.

Again, it simply shows the value of smaller pixels.

[0lBaldy]

Maybe these links will help some or be a reference for future use.

Help to enlarge picture with minimal loss

Which image interpolation (photo resizing / resampling) method is the best?

[neumanns]

Also worth mentioning if you are gonna uprez, do not sharpen first. Sharpening is almost always one of the last step's. I'm sure you are aware of that, but since you mentioned you cropped then sharpened and are now considering upsizing. You will be better of cropping, uprezing, correcting and then sharpening.

[Verywierd]

Hi Sharon,

I tried an interpolation of your cropped image to 3000x1999 using a third party plugin. The attached is a reduction of the resultant TIFF file to a 800x533 JPEG, which of course reduced the quality a bit. I made no other corrections to the image.

If it looks better than what you are getting I'd be happy to email the full sized (approx. 4.7Mb) file to you.

[sharonmichele]

thanks for all the good feedback- just the kind of help I was hoping for.

my image interpolation was set to bicubic so I will try it with bicubic smoother and see what results I get.

Thanks for the links- those were helpful- and the reminder to sharpen last.

Verywierd, what third party plugin did you use to get those results?

[Aleksman71]

I used Alien skin image doctor 2-->JPEG repair and the output is this.
Second picture is o crop from image resized to 8x10

[Verywierd]

I used Alien Skin Blow Up.

[crazyfly1]

Sharon, I believe that ACR (adobe camera raw) is a free download for photoshop owners. You should be able to crop and resize in ACR without too much damage as long as you don't resize to an extreme.

[TommyO]

Genuine Fractals also has a very good reputation.
Genuine Fractals