Paul Cooper wrote in message . ..
On 29 Jan 2004 12:15:22 -0800, (W. W.
Schwolgin) wrote:

wrote in message . ..
I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print
them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on
it?

560x700 pixel is not much information to print at the size 8 x11 inch
and the data must be upsampled. Normally the printer driver does this.
This is convenient, but you cannot control the result.
There are differnt methods to upsample or interpolate. They differ in
speed and quality. Pixel replication is a verry fast method, but the
results are poor. Normally bicubic interpolation is a good trade off
between speed and quality. But there are better methods availably.
Some are implemented as photoshop plugins, others are standalone.
The tool I use for printing is Qimage. It can be use free for 30 days.
so you can find out whether you like the results.
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/
But of cause there are other products in that market.

Winfried

Fundamentally, this isn't worth the trouble. There simply isn't enough
information to make it worth while. The results will always be fuzzy,
and if you somehow did (by resamply and sharpening) make it look
better, it would be full of spurious artifacts.

Paul

Paul,

you are right, in this case there might not be enough information for
a good print. But why do you say "fundamentally"? To my experience the
interpolation method makes a difference. I did a test and printed an
image with the size 10 x 15 cm at 300dpi (about 6.2 MB as tiff). I
printed the image with Photoshop Elements and Qimage at the size
10x15cm. Of cause the was no realy difference.
Then I did a second test with the same file and printed at 100dpi and
a size of 30 x45 cm. In this case there was a visual difference. The
Qimage print looked smoother and more sharp. But nevertheless, a
100dpi image will not give a good print.

Winfried