How to Choose and Enlarge Photo for Print Without Compromising Quality

Are you editing digital images for the first time? If yes, you must know resizing them can be a daunting task. But do not worry because various simple softwares can help you give quality results.

These digital photos play an essential role in designing a website, promoting business through social media, or publishing blogs. All users want high-quality and properly-sized images. In addition, these digital pictures give the website or any brand a professional look.

The digital images affect the website's performance as high-resolution images increase the website's load time. The guide below will help you enlarge photos using different softwares and answer common queries related to resizing. So, let us get started.

Check File Formats for Printing Process

First, determine that the printer is catering to what file formats or sizes. Most printing houses use the standard accessible format, i.e., JPEG. But, usually, JPEG files lower down the quality of images.

Ideally, you should enlarge the images in the original RAW formats. Then, export those files to a TIFF format. TIFF files are less restrictive as compared to JPEG. But you hardly notice the information loss while printing JPEGs in any small format.

Sometimes, the image quality is below standards; you can use different techniques to improve it. But, again, everything is about assessing the size of your current file.

Check the Photo Resolution

While getting customized prints of your favorite photo, you must deal with image resolution. The picture resolution will help you check the sharpness after a photo rolls out from the printer.

Without a good resolution, you can not do much to create big impressive prints. It also depends on print size, and ofcourse you will see pixelation.

The easy and quick way to check the Resolution is to open the photograph in editing software like Photoshop. First, go to "Image." Then, click on the "Image Size."  You will see an information window pop up.

You can look for DPI (dots per inch) in a resolution box. It will tell you about the number of pixels per inch of an image. The higher the DPI, the better the photo resolution.

Ensure That Photo has High Resolution

The standard image resolution in the industry is 300 DPI. So naturally, nobody wants to print images lower than the industry standards. If you download pictures from the internet, you will find their resolution 72 DPI usually.

Based on the dimensions, you can print them. But you will not get high-quality prints. So, you will have to enlarge the images ultimately.

The Process to Enlarge a Photo for Print

You can use photo editing tools on your computer. What you have to do is adjust the DPI and get the image ready for printing. However, if you have some photo editing softwares like Photoshop, you can do some other things.

If you tune the DPI, it will present the largest size of an image. At this, you can maintain the original photo quality. Follow the steps below:

  • Go to the file and double-click on it to open its preview. (For opening multiple pictures, highlight all and right-click. Then, press on the "open" option.)
  • Go to the menu bar. Then, click on the "Tools" option.
  • On the "Tools" drop-down menu, select the "Adjust Size" option. (Look for adjustable cells to check width, height, or resolution)
  • Choose the "inches" to set the height and width. Then, select "pixels" to set the image resolution.
  • Look for the "Resample Image/Photo" checkbox. Set the "Resolution" 300 pixels/inch.
  • After resizing the image as per your liking, click on the "Okay" button. Then, save your file.

Once you set the maximum height or width at 300 DPI, play around and check how large you can resize without losing the picture quality. Then, at last, everything is up to you. You can opt for quality or size.

Choose whatever is more important to you.

The Process to Enlarge Old Images Without Losing their Quality

Enlarging already printed or old photos is all about the DPI of your home scanner. Many scanners can process pictures up to 1200 DPI. It means the resolution is four times the required one for quality prints.

So, you can reprint or scan the print four times larger, keeping the scanned photo's quality. Then, you can go to scanner settings and increase the image resolution. Then, after scanning the picture, adjust the digital file’s resolution too.

Conclusion

Though it is possible now to enlarge the picture without losing its details, always remember that a computer is a machine and blind. It makes changes by doing algorithms and following patterns.

But, it does not understand that how an image will look. So, it means you have to check the picture carefully while resizing.

The one of the best ways to solve this problem is to set the camera to photographing RAW and edit the files directly.

 

 

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