little tip

[minotauro]

if you don't want to buy the good Genuine Fractals to increase the size of images here is a good tip for using Photoshop's tool.

I've discovered that by increasing the size (with bicubic algorithm) on 10% repeated increments the image quality loss is far lower that increasing it all at once.
You can build an action with a single 10% increment, assign it a function key and repeat it until you reach the desired size.

[Swampy]

I didn't know. :D

[Tom V]

I didn't know. I will try it.

[lightwrangler]

For years I've been "growing" files by small increments but I usually start at around 20 - 25% and go in smaller increments the larger I go (10% or 5%). In this way I used to make Oly E10 files (4mp) work for magazine covers. I've seen people make posters from small files this way without Genuine Fractals, which as I understand it, is best used in making large files smaller for storage and transfer and not as good at interpolation. I did hear someone say once that going in multiples of 8 with Photoshop was supposed to be the best because of 8 bit pixel depth, but I can't say that I've noticed any difference between 8% and 10%. I'm no mathematician, but this doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

[Swampy]

Oh no. Tom... You said you didn't know something in PS. That's bad. Now we have to find a new expert! :D

[Linda G]

I think Fred Miranda has an action to do that. *sigh* He could nickel and dime a lazy photographer to bankruptsy!

Linda

[minotauro]

Linda, it's a really simple action to make!

1. activate the actions palette
2. click on the small triangle on the right and choose "New action"
3. name it "resize" or what you like
4. assign it a function key selecting it from the menu (mine in PF3)
5. click on "record" button
6. now select Image/image size, opening the dialog box
7. make sure that "resample image" is marked, that "constrain proportions and "bicubic" are selected
8. change the unit to "percentage" for both the width and the height
9. change from 100 to 110 the value to one of the dimensions (the other will be automatically changed with constrain proportions on)
10. click "OK"
11. on the actions palette click on the square button to stop recording the action.

You now have a brand new action, every time you press the function key you selected you will increase by 10% the size of the image.

Since it's not possible to post an .atn file, if you whish, i can send a copy of mine to all lazy guys who will write the email address....

[Swampy]

You can post the ATN file, just zip it first.

[Linda G]

Thank you, Luigi, for taking the time to write that all out!

I do not enlarge my images very often because we have great software at work that does it for our various printers....line by line.

I do find some of Fred Miranda's actions intriguing, but wonder about some of these people who have so many of them!

Linda

[Linda G]

Sorry! MINOTAURO, Not Luigi!

[RacerX]

Thanks for the great tip minotauro! I'll be incorporating that one into my actions. I still think that maybe Tom might be the closest thing we have on being a tutorial expert in PS and even in PS 7.0 too. :D

take care . . .
Rick

[SSonnentag]

You can now attach .atn (Photoshop Action Files) without first zipping them.

Shawn

[minotauro]

Here's my action set.
they are based on the italian version, i don't know if they work on other versions.
let me know...