I believe the best technique is to use Bicubic Smoother in Image Size dialogue, coupled with Smart Sharpen / Gaussian deblur.
Does the author say anything about WHY it would be better to use ACR?? (I notice your paragraph starts with a ‘So,’)
Mathias,
Here is the entire quote:
" MAKING YOUR PHOTO BIGGER? DO IT IN RAW!
Another advantage of working with RAW images comes when you need to make your image larger than the original. Of course, this is generally thought of as a big no-no because making a photo bigger than its original usually means a major loss of sharpness and quality, but if you’re shooting RAW, well
not so much. Well, not nearly as much. So, all you have to do is go to Camera Raw’s Workflow Options (in the bottom-left corner of the dialog), and from the Size pop-up menu choose a larger size (make sure you also choose 8 Bits/Channel for your depth), and you’ll get much better results from your forbidden upsizing than you would have if you tried to do the same thing in Photoshop using the Image Size dialog (under the Image menu)."
I will need to try this for myself, but I couldn’t understand any reason it would be true.
Stan
I can see why you’d need to ask questions, ’cause that post is just about as clear as mud, as it says zero about the advantage. My guess is a dude discovered that upressing in Camera Raw was possible, and decided to tell the world about this ‘revolutionary’ way of upsizing.
Best is to try yourself.
Mathias
(make sure you also choose 8 Bits/Channel for your depth),
I can’t see any reasoning behind this part of the statement either. Opening a file in 16 bit will result in better quality simply because the resulting file will contain all of the (10 to 12) bit information generated by the camera.
As Mathias said: try both methods to see for youself which works best.
Is this true? I thought using Image>Size in PS, especially when upsizing in small repeated increments, was the best technique.
The jury was out on that one – untill, that is, Judge Chris Cox stepped in with one of his famous one-liners:
———————————————————— ——— Chris Cox – 7:39pm Jul 31, 06 PST (#8 of 13)
The step/110% stuff came from before Photoshop CS (and was still wrong). ———————————————————-
Chris Cox, "MEMORY AND CS2" #8, 31 Jul 2006 7:39 pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/7>
….and he wrote much of the code, so he should know 😉
Hope all this helps.
Chris.
I’m with Mathias POV that it is a discovery that the author of the tip made (the fact that one can upres in ACR).
But, let’s read what the author of ACR and original creator of Photoshop, Thomas Knoll wrote when he was quoted in the following FAQ from the Camera Raw Forum:
Q: Is it better to resize my images in Camera Raw, or in Photoshop?
A: (Quote from Thomas Knoll) The resampling code is fairly similar to (but not exactly the same as) the "Bicubic Sharper" resampling in Photoshop CS and CS2. It does not make very much difference which stage you do the resampling in. The exception is non-square pixel cameras (Nikon D1x and Fuji S2 Pro), for which it is best to upsample one size step in Camera Raw if you need a larger image.
I have always opened RAW files to their generic size, and I keep my edited "master" file saved at that size.
Then when I need a larger image, I upsize (in one step) using Bicubic Smoother. If I need a smaller image I go back to the master file and downsize using Bicubic Sharper.
Presumably they chose Bicubic Sharper as the resampling code for ACR to ensure reasonable results when using the Web Galleries and Contact Sheet functions directly from RAW files.
Basicly Stan, what we are collectively saying here is that Planet Photoshop (in this instance at least) is really Cloud Cuckoo Land 🙂
Jeff Schewe wrote an article on upsizing RAW files (as compared to using Photoshop) in Digital Photo Pro magazine (
http://www.digitalphotopro.com/home.php). Sadly, the article is not on their Web site, nor does there appear to be any way to order back issues.
Thanks, all.
I tried this on a RAW image from a Nikon D200, comparing 8 bit RAW upsizing to 16 bit CS2 upsizing with Bicubic Smoother. I couldn’t really see much difference, and after applying Smart Sharpen equally to both resultant images, I still couldn’t see any real difference at 100%.
Try this one: You have a PS file that is say, 8 by 10 , 300dpi and you want to print a poster, 30 by 20 inches. Go to image size, type 30 by . If you don’t get 20, incease the 30 till you do, then you can alway crop. Change the dpi to 360, select resample, and bicubic sharper. ( I know, It is breaking the rules, but try it ) Click ok. You may then want to sharpen the picture. I started out with a 8 mb raw file, converted to PS, and did the above. Sent the print off to mpix.com to be printed, and when it arrive, I was amazed at the quality.
I learned this trick from one of Scott Kelby’s books.
