Upsizing Images help needed

[Jools Elliott]

Evening all

 

I have some images that I need to upsize and I'm wondering on the best way in which to do this.

 

Currently, I use Lightroom 2.7 and the original images are 3456 pixels on the widest edge. I need them to be 3700 pixels on the widest edge. Original files are RAW.

 

Would appreciate the best, and most non-destructive way, in which to achieve this.

 

Thanks:)

 

Jools

[Colin Woods]

Jools

I always use Photoshop's Bicubic Smoother for up-sizing. I don't know if that's the best way but its what I use and when I was shooting 6MP and Alamy wanted 48MB files its what I used for Alamy. To go from 3450 to 3700 pixels isn't that big a leap so it probably should be fine. That said, I'm be curious myself to see what some of our tech experts say about using the Photoshop algorithm, and upsizing in general. 

Cheers

Col

[wiskerke]

In general: always directly from RAW.

 

In this case, the upsizing is rather limited, so unless you have a sharpened image, just upsize it from the finished file.

If you have a finished file that has been sharpened for output before saving, you generally have to start over.

(Which is exactly why the general rule for stock is: do not sharpen.)

If you have no finished and saved file, upsizing directly from RAW uses the best information possible.

 

wim

 

edit:

expert?

photography teacher: yes

photoshop: just a user albeit since photoshop 2.5 (first windows version)

[John Mitchell]

I've always used PS Elements, bicubic smoother, to upsize.  Have never had any problems with this method. I used to regularly upsize 28 MB TIF files (10 MP camera) to 48 MB when Alamy required it. I can't remember ever having any QC failures due to upsizing or downsizing (which I sometimes do now).

[Chuck Nacke]

When I "Upsize" it is always from a RAW file and I upsize the file ONCE in Adobe Camera Raw, currently using CS5 but have

done this with CS4 back to Photoshop 6. CS5 works well using "Bicubic Smoother".

[Jools Elliott]

And if I only have Lightroom? That's a curious question;)

 

Can you use the output in Lightroom to specify a long edge size? Will this work just as good as using PS?

[David Kilpatrick]

The latest Creative Cloud ACR offers remembered - annoyingly not camera specific - resizing. Thus, I set my output to 3600 x 3600 and whatever crop I draw, whatever camera I use, the image always ends up this max size (you can specify megapixels as an alternative if you do lots of skinny letterbox pix etc). 100% view always reflects the upsizing. Quite neat.

[ann m]

And if I only have Lightroom? That's a curious question;)

 

Can you use the output in Lightroom to specify a long edge size? Will this work just as good as using PS?

Yes, you can in LR. On the selected image, go to 'file' 'export' & this brings up the box for your export settings. There are keyboard shortcuts, but I do it this way.

ann