Photos are 1200 x 1800. Am I screwed?

I got the original files from my photographer from our wedding and they are 1200×1800 megapixels.

I want to do some full page bleeds in either an 8×10 or 11×13 but the resolution isn’t high enough. Is there anything I can do?

I assume the photographer gave me the largest files he shot. Will it look terrible if they are not high-res?

Thank you in advance for your help…this is all new to me!

Posted by
carl0938

Dec 21, 2007 1:48pm PDT

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There is this technique you can use if you have Photoshop:

Open the photo you want to up the resolution of., then go to image menu and choose image size. In the dimension boxes you can type in the width of the page, (for a full page, full bleed template- let’s call it 10", for a 8 by 10 landscape format book). Type in the resolution, which should be 250 or 300 or there abouts. That’s a Photoshop rule breaker, to up the resolution in that way, but…take the next step…)

Click on the arrows beside the ‘resample image’ box. Then click on ‘bicubic sharper’. Then click ‘Ok’, upper right.

You will have an image with higher res and without the artifacting that generally occurs. This is not my tip. It comes from ‘The Photoshop CS2 Book for Digital Photographers’ by Scott Kelby of the Photoshop User Magazine.

If you don’t have Photoshop you’ll have to choose the images that you want to use as full page illustrations and have your photographer do that step for you (he probably has Photoshop).....it is not time consuming, and in a pinch, it works, even though it does break a few Adobe Photoshop rules.

Probably others out there have there own ideas on how to safely up resolution without encountering the usual problems associated with doing so.

Posted by
cantudoit2

Dec 23, 2007 3:12pm PDT

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If you do not have Photosop there is a very good free image editing program called GIMP that will resize the photos for you, it has a number of algorithms for resizing, cubic is probably the best for what you are trying to do. GIMP has most of the features of Adobe Photoshop Elements (some would say more features and capability)

You can get more information and download it from http://gimp.org/

....Tony

Posted by
tfrankland

Dec 23, 2007 9:06pm PDT

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Keith,

Are you saying that if I use this technique I can take a low res pic and turn it into a high res pict with quality detail?

Keep smiling

Posted by
pictureme

Dec 30, 2007 11:45am PDT

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This was presented in The Photoshop Book for Digital Photographers basically as a (unorthodox) resizing technique. You can not expect to generate much high quality detail where none existed in the low res photo. However if you are faced with the situation like carl where he wants to use a low res foto for a full page bleed in Booksmart, then this is a way of accomodating the optimal res guide lines for a full page without generating pixel artifacting, (which occurs when you arbitrarily type in a higher number in the resolution box which you find in the "image size" window of PS CS2). The trick is to type in your higher res number and then select "bicubic sharper", and then click "OK". You could try this technique in combination with "smart sharpening" in Photoshop to see what you could do with the detail in a less then sharp foto. But this is stuff you do in a pinch, of course. Far better to start off with a high res file in the first place. It’s sort of a case of "garbage in, not such bad garbage out". It’s kind of interesting to see what happens to the look of fotos when you start to experiment with the different sharpening options available in Photoshop. The one presented by Scott Kirby won’t be found in an "offical" Adobe Photoshop Manual…..but it’s definitely worth playing with.

Posted by
cantudoit2

Dec 30, 2007 3:34pm PDT

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Also if you haven’t got Photoshop, Irfanview (google it) has good resizing options and a brilliant batch interface.

Posted by
thompp

Dec 31, 2007 7:35am PDT

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cantudoit2

Thanks-that clear to me now. I may use this technique.

keep smiling

Posted by
pictureme

Dec 31, 2007 11:19am PDT

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I used Genunine Fractals (a PhotoShop plugin) to upsize my images, for example I did a 2 page spread with full bleed on both pages. Upsizing doesn’t improve the quality of the image, just allows a higher resolution at a particular DPI. I know a pro photographer who uses Genuine Fractals to make huge poster prints without loss of quality. Dunno what the limitations of the built-in Photoshop resizing are in terms of quality and/or size.

Posted by
gymell

Jan 2, 2008 10:16am PDT

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I would also check with your photographer.

If he is a professional, he can’t possibly have used a 2mpixel camera, so he/she most likely gave you just previews, either to limit the download size, or because he wants more money to give you the full size shots.

So before you embark in an enlargement of such low-resolution images, possibly with non-optimal results (the software cannot create what was not recorded, after all, just make it look less bad) I’d contact them

Ciao, Marco.

Posted by
mbilla

Jan 3, 2008 6:24pm PDT

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