Newbie question on resizing

tonysab · #1 02-01-2002, 02:23 AM

Just came across this site and it looks very useful and helpful. I've just started to get into the restoration of photographs, using Photoshop 6.0. I'm currently 'practising' on some old photos of my gran's before hopefully branching out to offer my services elsewhere. I wonder if I could pose what might seem a silly question -

I have a photo which is quite small (approx 4" x 2"), I would like to resize this to make it twice as big, but I'm a bit worried about losing quality. I was thinking that if I scanned it in at a high resolution (for example 600dpi - I normally scan at 300dpi), would this make any difference if I then said resize to 200%? And if so should I resize before I start work on restoration or at the end? I would have thought that it would be better to resize at the start so any editing I do I can make sure looks ok, rather than do it at the end and suddenly see all the work I have done stand out like a sore thumb!

Hopefully this makes some sense, I'd be grateful of any advice.
Thanks,
Tony

Doug Nelson · #2 02-01-2002, 03:52 AM

Check out the thread in the Input/Output forums called "Scanning for enlargements". There are several similar threads, as well.

tonysab · #3 02-01-2002, 05:57 AM

Thanks for the info, apologies I didn't notice that forum I will take a look.

DJ Dubovsky · #4 02-01-2002, 08:21 AM

Tony
Welcome aboard. As Doug stated, there are lots of forum topics on resolution and resizing to check out. You will probably find more info than you seek there plus good urls that help you even more. There's a thread on Scanning Calculator that might be helpful to you. Check that out. It's in the Input/Output forum as well.
You're not the only one baffled about the right resolution for the job. It's been a popular topic more than once on this site. Enjoy the forum and look forward to hearing more from you.
DJ