Getting a better quality image from a low quality image

[Boudica]

This is one thing I've noticed every once in a great while in this software: Check out his chin. It occasionally really likes to add hair where it wasn't before if it thinks there is supposed to be hair there.
I've used this on a few low-res (female) athlete photos had a couple of them turn into werewolves in the software. I had to alter my settings, but just be aware of it in your use.

OMG, your right! I didn't even notice that. I was tinkering with the settings so his eyes didn't look so buggy. LOL, didn't even look at his chin.
about a year ago, I was doing some old pictures, and an unfortunate shadow turned into a hitler mustache on a woman - so I nick named her hitlers angry grandmother. Fortunately, they were being made into photo op standees, so her face was getting cut out anyway.

Edit: thank you jfiscus , I'm just about to scan a batch of old photos right now that I will be enhancing with gigapixel. I'm glad you posted that, and I read it when I did!

 

[gnubler]

I was doing some old pictures, and an unfortunate shadow turned into a hitler mustache on a woman - so I nick named her hitlers angry grandmother.

Where did you get pictures of me?

Gigapixel crashes on my little old Mac so I stopped using it. Waiting breathlessly for my new workstation which should be arriving any day now.

 

[Humble PM]

Gigapixel runs amazingly on M1/M2 architecture. My ageing 5.1 macpro struggles in comparrison to M1 MBP.

Gigaphoto can throw up some "interesting" results - finding faces in backgrounds where none were present (the application offered to download, and I thought why not). This looks freakish and weird.. Had some ultra low res images (<200px) yesterday where the output was mostly good, but was reminded of some of the less handsome dwarves from LOTR. And on relatively default settings, some seascapes (waves, beach, sky) turned into a fractal acid trip.

That's a cute button nose, not a nasty fasch tasch.

 

[gnubler]

Fasch tasch

 

[Manevitch]

My favorite Hollywood BS moment on enhancing images: the 1998 movie Enemy of the State with Will Smith. There's one scene where these government guys hack into the video surveillance cameras in a retail clothing store. They use their "enhancement" software to rotate the surveillance camera image in 3D space, like Matrix bullet time (several months before The Matrix hit theaters). I laughed my a$$ out out loud when that moment happened. It was such unbelievably stupid bull$hit. I really laughed hard at it. It was so stupid.

Fun story time: I once had a customer hand me a transparency of a side-view of a Corvette he wanted me to scan. OK, simple, right?

He wanted me to "clone out the door so you can see the interior."

 

[Neko2]

I used to work at Kinkos and was often asked to rotate images so that people would be facing the camera instead of looking away.

 

[Stacey K]

I just finished up a magazine ad for an Amish guy. He couldn't understand why "my machine" couldn't make his horse turn to look at us.

 

[Boudica]

actually, photoshop has a beta .ai that can do that - you can change the expression on someone's face, and the direction they are looking, and kind of turn their head.

 

[gnubler]

He wanted me to "clone out the door so you can see the interior."

Oy vey, I've seen enough of that and more. Like not having enough image to crop into a frame and trying to explain the limitations of working with something that doesn't exist.

 

[johnnysigns]

I used gigapixel for some very low res icons and elements of a sign we just made. I think my root files were just too low resolution because it turned a lot of the content into gobble-dee-gook. We ended up retypesetting or recreating a lot of the content in the end.

 

[Humble PM]

I used gigapixel for some very low res icons and elements of a sign we just made. I think my root files were just too low resolution because it turned a lot of the content into gobble-dee-gook. We ended up retypesetting or recreating a lot of the content in the end.

I think it's not too different to the auto tracing in Illustrator - get the settings right, and you can get a good output from a web grab logotype. Just that GP can be very slow, and I've not yet found the fine manual to read.

 

[John Miller]

Here's a good one. A woman comes in with a black & white photo and asks for a poster in color. When I say colorizing is possible but quite expensive, she says "just copy it with color film".... now why didn't I think of that?

 

[johnnysigns]

I think it's not too different to the auto tracing in Illustrator - get the settings right, and you can get a good output from a web grab logotype. Just that GP can be very slow, and I've not yet found the fine manual to read.

I played with the settings quite a bit for the initial files I needed it for - and to be clear we did use some of those elements from gigapixel + photoshop for the signs we produced. I did drop some low res pictures in there and I was impressed with the results. I definitely agree it's a little slow to update with every change you make, but it's still pretty neat.

 

[GC Decor]

Gigapixel AI is awesome, Had a few low quality images from a customer. Didn't want to do the run around, customer was already challenging to work with.
Best $100 ive spent for sure.

 

[jfiscus]

Wanted to share an unbelievable before and after from yesterday. Topaz definitely saved the day on this image. Original image provided was 159 pixels x 158 pixels... made into a useable image!!!
I don't know how it does it, but it does it.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Wanted to share an unbelievable before and after from yesterday. Topaz definitely saved the day on this image. Original image provided was 159 pixels x 158 pixels... made into a useable image!!!
I don't know how it does it, but it does it.

The "face enhancement" option is crazy good

 

[jfiscus]

Here is another image that Gigapixel took from completely unprintable to printable. I've used it for a few years now, and every now and then it still amazes me.

 

[ChaseO]

I see this thread came back around. I am still using Topaz Gigapixel. Money well spent and definitely a time saver for some jobs and a miracle worker for others.