low res images help

[alcina]

Hi! I messed up a setting on recent holidays and now have some important family pictures that were shot at 640x480 - dumb blonde moment, fah sure!

Any ideas on how to make the most of these so I can print something - I know they will be small, but that's OK.

Some of these shots are important sentimental-wise so I am willing to work on them!

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Gilligan]

Hmmm, that's a good question. 640 X 480 at 72 dpi is roughly 8.8" X 6.6" and 72 dpi is not good print quality. It leaves you little room to increase the dpi by reducing the size of the photos to perhaps 3" X 5", which will increase the dpi to around 128.
In either case I think I would open them in Photoshop and make any adjustments to brightness, contrast, sharpness etc. then re-save them as TIFF's at the print size and burn them on a CD ROM and take it to a commercial photo shop for prints.
Maybe someone else will post a better solution for you.

 

[Tearless Tom]

I agree it doesnt leave much room for editing.
Photoshop has a very good BiCubic Sampling. If your exposures are good and you don't need to do much editing you can try this. The more post editing you do the less forgiving it will be.

Click on Image --> Image Size. Make sure both the Constrain Proportions and Resample Image boxes are checked. It should be showing BiCubic in the box.

Now change your resolution to 250 (that is what most labs and printers print at.)
Change the Height / Width to the size you want. and hit OK.
Quick and Dirty way.

Now go to the VIEW tab and look for the PRINT SIZE
This will give you a good idea what the final print will look like. If it looks good on screen it will probable be okay...If not it will not.

Thats one way... A second is to UPSAMPLE by going to the IMAGE --> IMAGE SIZE . Change any of the boxes to increase the size by 10% by entering in 110% in to the field and highlight percent.
Keep doing this till you get the file size you need.

Some people think this works better. I personally cant see much difference between the two.

There is also a program called Ginuine Fractals. that is suppose to be very good.

Again I can't see much difference between it and Photoshops Bicubic resample.

Good Luck

 

[boney]

Those are your best options, I had a friend who recently did the same with his digicam and he took them for printing anyway just to see how they would turn out and there is a BIG difference.
What image editing software are you using???

 

[ReyeR]

Maybe try a photo printing store or a digital printing shop. Their 'ripping' software is usually much more powerful than Photoshop.
Other options could be something like Genuine Fractals. Also have a look at this: http://www.trulyphotomagic.com/shortcut/customer/welcome.php