How do I make this image bigger without losing quality?

[garfield]

I would like to ask a question. How do I make this image bigger but at the same time not lose the quality? I just found this at google and its background is good for the mastermind game that we plan to make, because if I resize it, it just blurs. Also how do i change the background here? I'm hoping to make it big as 640*480 pixels. help thanks! I tried saving in gif the circle only without the white border but there's really nothing happen!

[jeaniesa]

As far as I know, there is no way to increase the size of an image without "losing" quality. I put "losing" quality in quotes, because in reality, you are not losing any information in the image. The information you need to make it a larger, quality image just doesn't exist - and it can't be created from thin air. Resizing the image to be larger in Photoshop (or any other program which is dedicated to enlarging images) can only be done through interpolation, i.e. the "new" information is calculated from surrounding pixels. When there's not much information to begin with, it's not possible to enlarge to a quality image.

Hope this helps,
Jeanie

[garfield]

Also how do i change the background at the image?

Pls. help I have a picture here. I would like to resize it to 40*40 pixels but my problem is that if I resize it within that size the thum look like its flatten. When you flat an image what does it mean? Did you see the black outline. how do I get it out and there is still a black color behind the image bec.I just kinda rotate the image and trim it so the thumb would look like its standing. How do I do clear it bec. del or magic eraser don't work?
Does doing a transform scale make the trick to make a small image become big and look good?
Why is it sometimes when I move the image there appears some dotted bakcground from where that image is?
How do I interpolate an image?

[Woody]

Unfortunately enlarging a small image always
"pixelates". Pixelation is when the picture
appears "chunky". It is caused when one
zooms in very very close or if one enlarges
a smaller image too big. The reason it happens
is because of the nature of "digital". A digital
image is stored as pixels, small dots of color
on your screen. The bigger the original image
the smaller these dots are. What you see on
the screen is Photoshop's display of that image.
It may or may not be showing the smallest
dot or pixel possible at any given zoom setting.
Remember that your monitor always has the
same pixel resolution, the resolution you set
on your desktop(PC) (don't know aboutMacs).
Mine is set to 1024X768, yours might be different.
Photoshop knows that setting and adjusts
its output to the monitor accordingly. But the
file image size is fixed also. If, for instance, the filesize was also 1024X768 then the my monitor
would display 1024 pixels across the screen
exactly and I would see the exact whole image
on my monitor. However, if in PS, I zoom in
2:1, my monitor still displays 1024 across but now I only have 512 pixels to display the image
segment. PS then has to "double" or interpolate
each pixel so that the monitor looks correct. If
you looked at the image on the monitor with a
magnifing glass you would see two identical
pixels side by side for each one you saw in
the 1:1 image. As PS zooms in closer it duplicates pixels appropiately to give as nice
an image as possible. If I zoom in far enough
the image on my monitor starts to become
"chunky" or made up of blocks. Each block
is a set of duplicated pixels(many identical).
If I display a small image, say 40X40, at 1:1
it will be pretty small on my monitor. If I begin
to zoom in on it, PS starts duplicating pixels
and creating those "chunks" and pretty quickly
I start seeing them. This is why you loose
resolution when you blow up a small image.

Woody

[jeaniesa]

Also how do i change the background at the image?

There are a couple different ways. The easiest would be to select the background and then paste a new background into the selection. Or, you can select the part of the image you want and then copy it to a new background.

Pls. help I have a picture here. I would like to resize it to 40*40 pixels but my problem is that if I resize it within that size the thum look like its flatten. When you flat an image what does it mean?

Flattening an image means that you combine all of the layers in an image into one.

Did you see the black outline. how do I get it out and there is still a black color behind the image bec.I just kinda rotate the image and trim it so the thumb would look like its standing. How do I do clear it bec. del or magic eraser don't work?

I'm not sure what you mean by a black outline, but if your background color is set to black and you rotate your image, then the area that fills up the "rectangle" will be the same color as your background color. If you don't want black, then change your background color to whatever color you want before you rotate. Or, crop the image after you rotate so that you don't see the background color. (You will lose the outer edges of some of your original image this way though.)

Does doing a transform scale make the trick to make a small image become big and look good?

It doesn't matter what you use to make a small image big - if the data isn't there to begin with, it won't look good.

Why is it sometimes when I move the image there appears some dotted bakcground from where that image is?

Is it a dotted background or a small checkerboard? I think it is probably the "transparent" background informing you that the area of your image that you see with the checkerboard is transparent.

How do I interpolate an image?

Whenever you resize the actual pixel dimensions of an image, PS interpolates the data.

Jeanie