To sharpen/enlarge an image, without making it grainy

[scribbler]

Don't know if such a thing is out there, as I have looked but can't seem to find a free program that will sharpen, enlarge (or both..) an image, without either making it grainy or blurred.

I might not be explaining this too clearly, but I'm hoping any of you reading this who has spent any amount of time messing around with image files will no doubt understand both what I mean and what it is I am trying to find.

For the record, I have tried the likes of Lightbox, Irfanview and others, but none seem to give clear, crisp results when you enlarge or sharpen an enlarged image file. Don't get me wrong..these are good programs and the results are not bad..ut I'm looking for something a little more "special" than those mentioned here.

I have tired "Unshake", which is also a little gem of a program..but it doesn't seem to work too well at sharpening an image that isn't "shaken" to begin with. Any ideas of help finding what I am looking for will be really appreciated.

All the best

Dan

[torres-no-tan-magnifico]

Hi Dan,

I have used Zoner Photo Studio which has a very good sharpening tool, with plenty of options, that hopefully will match your specific requirements.

http://free.zoner.com/

Use the Editor part of the program and the keybord short Ctrl+5 to open the sharpen tool.

Unless the image is vector based (as opposed to a a bitmap image) you will always end up with a lower res photo the more you enlarge it. Any sharpening tool is basically a form of higher contrast, thus giving the appearance of having made a photo appear sharper.

Hope this was of some help!

[scribbler]

Originally Posted by torres-no-tan-magnifico

Hi Dan,

I have used Zoner Photo Studio which has a very good sharpening tool, with plenty of options, that hopefully will match your specific requirements.

http://free.zoner.com/

Use the Editor part of the program and the keybord short Ctrl+5 to open the sharpen tool.

Unless the image is vector based (as opposed to a a bitmap image) you will always end up with a lower res photo the more you enlarge it. Any sharpening tool is basically a form of higher contrast, thus giving the appearance of having made a photo appear sharper.

Hope this was of some help!

Thanks for this..I will give it a try and see how it goes.

I understand totally your comments regarding these things being a form of higher contrast..and that's the problem really. It would be nice if somebody could come up with a program that let you sharpen or enlarge a image and the end result would be better than the original..but I guess that's only going to happen in some future Spielberg or J. J. Abrams movie..

My thanks again for this..

Dan

[J_L]

This should be of interest: http://www.freewaregenius.com/2011/0...-and-for-free/

[zepe]

It's easy to make an image smaller, but not to make one larger. It's true that you can sometimes improve the appearance of an image by tweaking the contrast and brightness, but you can't bring out what just isn't there. I picture has only so many pixels and currently there is no way to add more and it there were the software would have to know where to place them. Sorry.