Best Image Enlargement Software For Mac
Before jumping into that topic, it is important to know how digital images are formed in the first place. There are basically two different techniques of creating a typical digital image.
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- Best Image Enlargement Software For Mac
- Best Image Enlargement Software For Mac Free
I use preview (Mac only) for quick resizing because it's installed on every Mac and it's super lightweight and simple. Just select the images you want to reduce, go to “image” in the menu bar and select the “image size” option. From there you can. Their Perfect Resize software claims to be able to enlarge photos up to 1000%, while maintaining the best image quality for print. The product is described as using 'Genuine Fractals' to optimize photos when they are enlarged. A useful feature that comes with the software is the ability to install it as a plug-in in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.
Raster (Bitmap): A Bitmap (Raster) consists of a grid of individual pixels, each defined by a specific color in the form of binary bits (hence the name). Popular image formats like JPEG, GIF and PNG save images as bitmap graphics.
Vector: In vector graphics, a set of mathematical expressions is used to define line segments, curves and other geometrical shapes that combine together to form a complete image. Drawings made in vector-based applications like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw are usually in vector graphics.
As vector graphics are mathematical representations, they can be resized or enlarged to any extent without any loss of quality (distortion-free scaling). However once the scaling is done, you need to export it to bitmap form in order to use it. Nowadays though, several vector formats, such as SVG, are directly supported in web browsers.
Page Contents
- 2 Enlarge images without losing quality (Lossless)
- 2.2 Enlarge photo without losing quality online
- 3 Resize images with minimal quality loss
Why bitmap images get blurred on enlargement?
The answer to this might be best explained with the Egyptian Pyramid analogy. The Pyramids of Egypt are ancient pyramid shaped structures built using huge stone blocks. When we see the Pyramids from a distance, they seem to be smooth pyramidal structures with straight edges. But if we look closer, we can start noticing significant roughness in the structure. Up close, you can clearly differentiate the stone blocks making up the edges of the Pyramids, which are, in fact, not straight at all.
On a similar note, when you gradually zoom into a bitmap image using an image viewer, at first the image may appear to be grainy. On further zooming, the edges in the picture become pixellated. At the highest level of zoom, you can clearly distinguish individual pixels based on their color, and the overall appearance of the image becomes blurred.
Usually, you can zoom an image up to 100 percent without distortion. In such cases, one pixel of the image corresponds to less than (or equal to) one pixel of the display screen.
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But when the image is enlarged beyond 100 percent, one pixel of the image is represented by more than one pixel on the display screen. That’s when you begin to distinguish individual pixels in the image (the grains). On zooming more, the pixels become more prominent (especially at the edges) and you can actually see the image comprising of square boxes of different colors. Thus, the overall image gets blurrier with more zoom.
Enlarge images without losing quality (Lossless)
Vector Graphics is the only form of image that can preserve its quality while enlarging it. If you want to enlarge bitmap images without losing quality, one way of doing so is to generate the vector form, enlarge, and then export them in bitmaps.
The process of converting bitmap images into vector is known as tracing. In the following section, we have used an application called Vector Magic for lossless enlargement of images.
Resize image without losing quality – software
Vector Magic is a bitmap to vector conversion tool that works well with logos, clipart and other forms of simple artwork. it is available as an online tool as well as a desktop application. Supported bitmap formats include JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, PSD, etc. while supported vector formats include EPS, SVG, PDF, AI, DXF, EMF, etc.
The desktop application provides offline access to all Vector Magic features on your Mac or PC. The software includes an unlimited trial version, which has all the features of the full version enabled (including full preview) except for the Save feature. To activate the Save feature, you need to purchase the software ($295 per license).
The following table gives you a complete feature comparison between Online and the Desktop Editions of Vector Magic.
Enlarge photo without losing quality online
The online version of Vector Magic allows you to upload bitmap images and convert them to vector form using automatic settings or manual settings. You can preview the result of the conversion and adjust the individual settings in the online editor if you like. But for downloading the vector graphics, you need a paid subscription.
In order to download vectorized images online, you need to either subscribe to Vector Magic Unlimited ($7.95 per month) or pay 1 token per download. A free sign up gives you two free tokens, which means you can download a maximum of two images for free. You can buy token packs containing 5, 10 or 20 tokens.
Free online photo enlarger
Besides Vector Magic, there are some free online tools available that allow you to vectorize bitmap images and download them. Some of these free online conversion tools include Autotracer, Vectorization, RapidResizer, etc.
Advantages of Vector Magic
Even though there are a few other free alternatives available for bitmap to vector image conversion, for professional use, it is recommended to go for the paid version of Vector Magic. Here is why you should prefer the paid solution over free ones.
Better accuracy: Vector Magic usually produces vectors that more closely resemble the input bitmap image, compared to free vector tracing applications.
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Cleaner output: Usually, vector converted image results are affected by factors such as noise. Vector Magic results are usually cleaner, while still extracting more detail from the bitmap original.
Easier to use: Free bitmap tracing tools usually have a lot of settings that often confuse users. With Vector Magic, the automatically selected settings usually give the best results. If you’re not happy with it, there’s even an “Improve Result” feature to help you tweak the result.
Upscaling a photograph always means trading resolution for size. And while Photoshop’s “preserve details” scaling does a pretty good job, there’s a freeware program called “A Sharper Scaling” that can do it even better.
The program—which is available for Windows users only, sorry Apple folks—was developed by Steffen Gerlach, and on his website he compares it to Bicubic Interpolation (BI), BI and sharpening, and Photoshop Preserve Details with noise reduction set to zero.
Even in the small comparison images there, the difference is obvious. Here’s just one of the samples he uses. From left to right, it shows 150% scaling using bicubic interpolation, BI + sharpen, Photoshop Preserve Details, and finally, A Sharper Scaling:
Best Image Enlargement Software For Mac
The difference is a bit more obvious when upscaling a graphic, shown here at 200% in the same order as above:
If you’re a Windows user, there’s really no reason not to give this simple program a shot. When you open it up, you’ll be greeted by a very simple interface that will let you use your own image or try out one of three sample images provided for you so you can see just how much better the program is than traditional algorithms.
After that it’s as easy as uploading a photo, selecting the scale size or upscale percentage, and letting the program do its thing.
To learn more or download the freeware for yourself (it’s compatible with Windows 7 and up) head over to the Sharper Scaling website by clicking here.