The Exposure Bundle integrates all our photography software apps into one. It excels as standalone photo editing software, but it can also be blended into a workflow in Photoshop. Exposure gives you powerful editing tools. Snap Art lets you apply painterly effects like oil paint and watercolor. And Blow Up enables you to enlarge photos crystal clear with advanced image enlargement technology. We made this video to demonstrate how to use the Exposure Bundle in your Photoshop workflow.

Watch the video if you’re first starting out with the Exposure Bundle. You’ll learn basic principles of processing images in Exposure, applying a painterly look with Snap Art, and how to resize and sharpen images with Blow Up.

The post Using the Exposure Bundle with Photoshop appeared first on Exposure Software.

Blow Up makes it simple to enlarge images with crystal clear quality. There are a number of different approaches you could take in a cropping or resizing job. Blow Up has several resizing modes to make each scenario a breeze.

Watch the video and learn how to use each of Blow Up’s resizing modes. We show how to crop and resize the image in a single step, resize without cropping or changing proportions, and how to stretch the image to fill the page. We also share suggestions for when to use each mode.

The post Blow Up Modes appeared first on Exposure Software.

Blow Up enables you to enlarge images to enormous sizes with crystal clear quality. It makes it easy to make photos big enough to print on a semi truck or a billboard. We made this video to show you how to use Blow Up.

Watch the tutorial and learn how to get started with Blow Up. You’ll see the end-to-end workflow, including how to open images from Exposure, enlarge to standard paper sizes, and apply sharpening so it looks just like the original shot. We also show how to add grain, and apply corrective sharpening for diffusion as the print ink dries on paper.

The post Getting Started with Blow Up appeared first on Exposure Software.

The Exposure Bundle integrates all three of our photography software titles into one. Exposure is the centerpiece, where you organize and edit images. Snap Art enables you to apply painterly effects like oil paint and watercolor. And Blow Up enables you to enlarge images to enormous sizes with Blow Up’s crystal clear image enlargement technology. We made this video to show how you can use the Exposure Bundle to create beautiful art.

Watch the video if you’re new to using the Exposure Bundle. It teaches you the basic principles of processing images such as how to copy images from a camera card, filter out the best shots, and apply editing adjustments in Exposure. You will also see how to open an image in Snap Art and give it a painterly look, and how you can resize and sharpen images efficiently with Blow Up.

The post Getting Started with the Exposure Bundle appeared first on Exposure Software.

We’ve updated all our products to support M1 Mac computers. Exposure X6 supported the new Apple Silicon computers back in December, but now all our software does!

The Exposure Bundle supports Apple Silicon Macs. That includes Exposure, our creative photo editor and organizer, Snap Art, for creating beautiful art that looks painted by hand, and Blow Up, for making crystal clear enlargements at enormous sizes. The list of Apple Silicon Mac supported products also includes our graphic design application Eye Candy, which creates great-looking graphics like chrome, glass, and fire in an easy-to-use interface.

You can update your software right now on our website. Or, if you haven’t used our software before, you can try it free for 30 days by downloading the trial.

Quickly adding support for the latest platforms is another way our team shows our commitment to making the best software money can buy. Frequently that means we are continually making adjustments behind-the-scenes to squeeze more performance out of computing systems on the cutting-edge.

The post Apple M1 Support Available appeared first on Exposure Software.

We’ve heard some really cool stories from Blow Up users over the years. This article points out a few of the fun Blow Up uses we’ve featured.

Illustrations at Enormous Sizes

Brian Edward Miller is a digital illustrator from Colorado. The first time he saw Blow Up’s rendering quality it became the obvious choice for his resizing needs. Now Blow Up is integrated into the process of creating his beautiful artwork. When making these huge, detailed illustrations Brian can use a smaller canvas, so he doesn’t deal with computer lag when working on the file. In this article, he created a semi trailer wrap using Blow Up for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Image Enlargement to the Rescue

Wedding and portrait photographer Christopher Nieto shares stories about how Blow Up rescued him from a few tight situations in this article. Blow Up helped him make up the resolution difference between small and full-sized RAW images for complete coverage of a wedding. Christopher also used Blow Up on old small cell phone photos to reproduce family heirlooms lost in a fire.

Wall-sized Prints

Enrique Colección makes inspiring larger-than-life-sized panorama images. Resizing with Photoshop didn’t produce satisfactory results. Enrique would need to painstakingly remove enlarging artifacts from his images before sending them to the printer. The larger the installation, the more time he needed to fix them. In this article, he talks about how Blow up saves him tons of time and helps his gigantic prints always look great.

High-quality Wall Art

Raleigh, NC photographer Simon Griffiths uses Blow Up to provide local businesses with great-looking large prints. He shared a little bit about his image enlargement process and how Blow Up helps him meet and exceed his client’s expectations. In fact, Blow Up has even helped him create work that’s good enough to steal. Learn more in this article.

Where is Blow Up?

The best way to run Blow Up is through Exposure. You can simply right-click on a photo and choose Blow Up from the ‘Edit in,’ or ‘Edit Copy in’ menus. Creating a copy of the image first before resizing ensures the original image is untouched. Blow Up also integrates easily with Photoshop and Lightroom.

Blow Up is a great way to enlarge your images. It will keep images crystal clear for enormous panoramas, gigantic portraits, or expansive illustrations. Whatever your needs are for enlarging images, we recommend Blow Up.

The post Photo Enlargement with Blow Up appeared first on Exposure Software.

One of the most hidden lakes of the Pyrenees is Estaing Lake in Val d’Azun, France. Enrique spent several weeks at this location creating routes for the new Auberge du Lac d’Estaing.

Why He Chose Blow Up

Resizing photos with Photoshop didn’t produce satisfactory results for Enrique. He often had to lower the image quality to 158, 118, or 38 dpi to make an image large enough to fill a wall. Enrique noticed subtle noise appearing in all his enlargements using this method. The larger the enlargement size, the more obvious the noise issues would be. Enrique would then clean up the image with a lengthy retouching process to correct resizing problems. As printers advanced to handle higher resolution photos, the time Enrique spent retouching photos grew longer. When he discovered Blow Up, it immediately changed the way he worked, which eliminated the need to retouch his photos after enlargement.

Restaurant La Ceramica in Barbastro, Spain. The inhabitants of Barbastro are great admirers of the highest peak of the Pyrenees, the Aneto, 11,167 feet. The original photo was 12 X 18 inches, but Enrique enlarged it with BlowUp to 104 x 167 inches, and the image maintained good quality.

Excellent Resizing Quality

Blow Up’s excellent photo resizing quality helps make Enrique’s massive installations possible. It’s capable of increasing the size of a photo several times over without sacrificing image quality. In 2018, Enrique produced his largest print, a massive 23-foot long photograph for the cyclist and mountaineering tourist destination in Argelès-Gazost, France, The Tourmalet Experience. It documents several ascending cycling routes of Enrique’s design, which connect to the legendary cols of the Tour de France.

Enrique scaled the slopes of Col de Tourmalet at 2:00 am with his headlamp, ice-ax, crampons, tripod, and camera to capture this impressive scene. The original image was formed by stitching four photos together before being enlarged more than six times with Blow Up.

Enrique has put Blow Up’s resizing technology to the test with the massive enlargements he creates. He has enlarged his photos up to 686% and had good results. He happily touts that the print he resized at that amount retained its quality and sharpness. Enrique says, “If a photo has good resolution and clarity, you can easily enlarge it with Blow Up to an incredible size.”

Casa Moliné in the Barrabés Valley is a Pyrenean style boutique hotel with photo walls at the heads of its beds. Pictured here are the Crabioules Circus, the Benasque Valley, and Aneto, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees. The panorama was originally 32 inches and was enlarged by 475% with Blow Up to nearly 13 feet.

Simplified Workflow

After completing initial tests using Blow Up, Enrique was confident it was the image resizing solution he needed. The pictures he resized with Blow Up didn’t need additional retouching, which simplified his photo resizing workflow. Now, his final image prep only takes him a minute. With Blow Up, Enrique is always confident his enlarged images will look great, and they won’t need any retouching clean-up.

Hut of Montgarri, in Val d’Aran, Spain. Due to its location, it is the only place in the Aran Valley where dog sledding trips are offered in winter along with snowshoeing, skis, and snowmobiles. Inside the refuge are large prints hung in several rooms, the largest of them was resized over 600% with Blow Up.

Enrique’s inspiring larger-than-life-sized panoramas have been made possible by Blow Up’s crystal clear image enlargement technology. His workflow for creating massive prints has greatly improved since he started using Blow Up. He now produces higher quality prints more quickly because he can forgo the final noise-removing retouching steps that he previously had to do during the enlarging process in Photoshop. Enrique’s huge panoramas have inspired countless visitors and tourists with the same passion he has for the Pyrenees. “In many cases, enlarging photos with Blow Up is often nothing short of a miracle,” he says.

Learn more about Enrique and see more of his photos by visiting the Routes of the Pyrenees created by Colección EGF on his Wikiloc page. It documents outdoor trails for cycling, hiking, and other activities and is a place of inspiration for photographers.

The post Creating Wall-Sized Prints with Blow Up appeared first on Exposure Software.

Blow Up Rescued a Wedding Shoot

Before starting to shoot a wedding, I confirm my own gear and the gear with my second shooters to double-check all our camera settings are correct. I always want to capture the largest RAW images possible, so that’s the first thing I verify. Some camera systems have small and medium-sized RAW format options, which are easy to miss. The small size in particular doesn’t record a large enough file to do any cropping and still have a large enough file to print. It’s still RAW format, so it’s understandably easy to mistake as the proper format when you glance at the display window. That’s exactly what happened to my second shooter at this wedding.

The resolution difference between small, medium, and full-sized RAW images.

After the wedding, I returned home late at night and downloaded the cards. I thought something was going wrong with my computer because I wasn’t able to zoom in on some of the images, but I dismissed it thinking I was just tired from the day of shooting. The next morning I realized what happened. It was only my second shooter’s images that weren’t allowing me to zoom in because they shot small-sized RAWs. At that point, there was nothing I could do. I had to edit the event just like I would regularly.

I have been using Blow Up to enlarge photos for wedding albums for a number of years. Parents of the bride and groom often send baby pictures or a snapshot of someone’s grandparents to include in the wedding album. Blow Up always performed well when I used it on low-quality photos, so I knew it could handle it.

After the editing was complete, I ran the smaller photos through Blow Up to match their size with the others in the set. Enlarging a bunch of shots in batches makes the process quick, so it only lengthened my post-processing workflow by a few extra minutes. The software is deceptively easy to use. I simply typed in the size I wanted the photos to be and pressed OK. The best part about using Blow Up is the quality of the resized images — it does a remarkably good job at keeping the images clear. The finals blended perfectly with the rest of the set, even though they’d been enlarged several times over. If I look back over the wedding today, I can’t tell which photos were resized and which ones weren’t.

Click to view full resolution image after it was resized with Blow Up.

…and then Another

A few months later, the same thing happened to me again. This time, the stakes were much higher. A local wedding vendor, who I’ve worked with plenty of times before, asked me to photograph their daughter’s wedding. There was a ton of pressure to perform well for this client. I booked a more experienced second shooter that I’ve worked with for over three years. I trusted that photographer much more, so I didn’t shoot extra to compensate for rookie mistakes. If I couldn’t use any of the images they took, there would have been a massive gap in coverage.

Click to view full resolution image after it was resized with Blow Up.

Once again, they had been shooting using the small RAW format, so the photos they delivered were only a fraction of the size I expected. Blow Up came to the rescue again, and it totally nailed it, like always. The wedding set turned out great! And no one can tell that some of the images were resized.

Click to view full resolution image after it was resized with Blow Up.

Blow Up Helped Rebuild a Client’s History

Not all my clients are celebrating the union of marriage. Later in the same year, I was contacted by a funeral home that had recently burned down. In the original building, there were prints hung on the walls of the owners and of their families from previous generations. The photographs ranged from the 20’s, 30’s, and all the way up to the current day.

Cell phone snap of original prints

The fire would have destroyed those memories, forever. Luckily, they found cell phone snaps of each of the photographs from the funeral home employees. I was able to clean up all the images, merge them, remove flash reflections, rebuild them, and then enlarge them to replace all the ruined prints. That client couldn’t be happier with how the enlargements turned out.

Blow Up greatly increased these small cell phone pics to be large enough to print at the same size as the originals.

I have been very pleased by the quality of the resizing effects since the first time I used Blow Up. It’s like magic. How is it even possible? Aside from the fabulous quality you get, one of the very best things about Blow Up is how easy it is to use. And it only takes seconds. I can process batches of images all at once, and it doesn’t slow me down. The speed of my editing workflow hasn’t changed much at all. It’s the perfect solution for all my image resizing needs. I tell photographers all the time to get Blow Up because eventually they will need it, and there’s nothing else out there that comes close to what it can do.

Thank you, Christopher for telling us about your experiences with Blow Up. You can learn more about him on his website, or follow him socially on Facebook and Instagram.

The post Blow Up Image Enlargement to the Rescue appeared first on Exposure Software.

Blow Up enabled Brian to design the Earthmobile’s semi-truck wrap for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Below are tight crops to show the detail.

 

Why does an illustrator need Blow Up’s photo resizing technology?

Brian’s production process involves a significant amount of Photoshop, as you could imagine. He does use a fast computer that’s capable of working with 1-2 GB files, but even that machine quickly becomes overloaded. A laggy computer is too cumbersome when working on huge files for large-scale images. Brian says, At that size, a single brush stroke can take seconds to render out, which completely destroys my workflow.

Blow Up solves this issue. Rather than suffering through lag, he uses a smaller, more manageable file size while creating the artwork. Then, he will use Blow Up to enlarge the piece after it’s been flattened. For Brian, Blow Up isn’t just making the final piece look good, it actually frees me up to work at the speed I need to during the painting process.

The Seamobile was the second semi-truck trailer Brian designed for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Below are a few close crops to show detail.

 

Why did Brian choose Blow Up for resizing?

Brian describes his introduction to Blow Up: We ran quality tests on my pieces — which have lots of texture, noise, and detail — when I first tried using Blow Up. I compared it against several other resizing applications, but Blow Up was the clear-cut winner. We went as far as to print a few pieces with a large format printer for a proper side-by-side comparison. Blow Up maintained the quality of my textures without making them fuzzy or distorted. The rendering quality and the affordable price of Blow Up made it the obvious choice for all my resizing needs.

Some of the illustrations I’ve done had to fit on a semi-truck wraps, so the pieces get pretty big! The agency I worked with turned me onto Blow Up. We realized with a few tests that we could enlarge my artwork up 700% before we started to see any sort of quality fall off.

One useful workflow trick I’ve found is to use it at the start of a project on a blank canvas, just to double check my size ratios. That way I know the exact percentage I’ll be enlarging things to.

Blow Up was integral to Brian’s process in making this 7-foot tall poster for Wings over Washington. A detailed crop is just below.

Blow Up has enabled me to work at a much faster pace without having to worry that the quality of the final print will suffer.

–

Learn more about Brian Edward Miller and see more of his fantastic illustrations on his website, Instagram, or Twitter. Additionally, learn about the artworks mentioned in this article on Brian’s blog.

The post Crystal Clear Photo Resizing for Creating Artwork appeared first on Exposure Software.

How long have you been using Blow Up for image enlargement, and why did you begin using it?

I’ve been using Blow Up for 10 years now. I had been using a series of actions prior to using Blow Up that worked okay but were cumbersome and took awhile to process. In Blow Up, having the interface that gives me an idea of what the finished image will look like at 100% is a real plus.

I first started using Blow Up when camera file sizes were maxing out at the 10-12 Megapixal range. My first commercial use was in the enlarging of files of that size up to 6 feet wide. I then took composite images up to as much as 10 feet wide, printed on stretched canvas.

For my show a year and a half ago, I created 12 large fine art prints that were enlarged primarily from 32 megapixel files up to 40 inches in one dimension. The quality of enlargement was outstanding and in many cases looked like the images had been shot on large format film or digital.

I just finished a project for a client that required taking their small JPGs at 72dpi up to 18”x24” at 300dpi. I used Blow Up on all the images and the results were extraordinary.

I did some initial editing in Photoshop to bring out clarity and contrast and improve the look of images that were either old JPGs of prints, or just small digital files. I then imported the images into Blow Up and took them all up to the same size. The grain function of Blow Up allowed me to bring a more historic look to several images, which was the point of the project anyway. The client was ecstatic.

Can you walk us through the image enlargement process with a sample image?

This was originally shot on a Nikon D200, which is a 12 megapixal camera. It was blown up to a layered image that is 1.8Gigs, so it’s six images stitched together. Then I used Blow Up to get it to a 60” wide print at 300dpi.

Even with the increased file size of the Nikon D800, I still use Blow Up when making larger prints, especially when the files I’m provided with aren’t that large to begin with.

A lot of my older work is on film and I can scan it at fairly high resolution using my Imacon scanner, but even then if I need to make a large print, I’ll use Blow Up to get it to the size I need with a DPI that tends to work better with my printer.

What was the learning curve like?

It’s fairly intuitive, so I can’t see that the learning curve is that hard.

If you use Blow Up as part of the Exposure Bundle, where does Blow Up occur in your workflow?

I only use Blow Up on a copy of my final image. Once I have made all my adjustments either with Exposure and Photoshop, I will save the file and then use Blow Up within Photoshop to enlarge the copy to whatever size is required, leaving the original file alone.

When you know you are going to enlarge an image in Blow Up, does it influence how you edit it ?

I don’t use as much sharpening on my original if I know it’s going to be enlarged greatly. I will wait for that step until either during the Blow Up process using the tools within Blow Up, or afterward in Photoshop. I like the fact that I can play with the before/after view to see what the effect will be within Blow Up. I also like to do that in Photoshop using a separate layer, after which I can go back to see which one works better.

What advice can you give photographers wanting to upsell existing clients or find new clients for large prints? How have you found your clients for these?

When asked to possibly make enlargements for clients, I will always photograph the space. Measure it correctly, then give them composite photographs with examples of what the images will look like on the walls to scale. It really helps sell the idea of large works of art. I used perspective, distort, and transform functions within Photoshop to correctly scale the images to the space where the image will hang.

For any photographers who are new to image framing, what considerations should they be aware of? What do you look for when choosing a frame?

Although I’ve offered unframed canvas prints in the past, I frame almost everything now. Unframed canvas has to be absolutely perfect to come across as something better than you can get at Costco. Very few companies can provide a level of canvas wrap that is really clean and professional looking.

If you want clients to pay you a lot of money, then if they look at the materials used on the back of a canvas wrap, it can completely undermine your ability to charge a premium.

All my wraps are custom built with heavy duty bars. The wrapping has to be absolutely perfect and for a long time, I had a guy that was so good at it. His wrapping was a work of art. I either use black edges or create a white border on the face of the wrap. Now because I struggle to get the back of the canvas as clean as I would like, I almost always custom build a floating frame to wrap the image. It looks so much more professional. I prefer to offer framed prints as finished pieces for my clients. It allows them to see my vision in its final form.

Do you use Blow Up exclusively for commercial work to clients, or do you also use it for image enlargement work for family and friends?

I don’t distinguish my work separately, whether it is for me or my clients. I am a BIG believer in personal work. Much of my work is personal. It drives my creativity and as such drives the kind of work I get from clients. If your portfolio is based on the work you did for clients yesterday and last week, then the work you get tomorrow and next week will likely be the same or less creative. If you show work in your portfolio that is creative and personal, then it starts to drive your work that you get tomorrow and next week.

Your Blow Up image enlargement work of ACC basketball players was stolen right off the walls of a hotel. Did the police ever recover these?

No, they didn’t recover the prints that I know of. I’m not sure the hotel even pursued it. The prints are probably sitting in some frat house. Since the hotel bought the work outright, it was insured, so we just redid them.

To see more of Simon’s work, visit his website.

The post Using Blow Up Image Enlargement to Deliver Large Prints to Clients appeared first on Exposure Software.

As you might have guessed, Exposure X is its centerpiece. We’ve integrated Exposure X with our other photo editing apps: Snap Art 4 and Blow Up 3. This bundle introduces a closer level of integration between Exposure X and these apps — for the first time, they can be launched directly from within Exposure X. And the bundle includes the latest version of Exposure X (version X.1), which brings new features like multi-monitor support, batch-file renaming, improved performance, and a brush mask for more precise editing. As always, each app can also be launched as a Photoshop or Lightroom plugin.

And there are savings, lots of savings.

The Exposure X Bundle is almost 60% less expensive than buying each app separately. For those of you who already own Exposure X, Snap Art 4, or Blow Up 3, you save an additional 40% on the bundle price. And if you bought the previous Photo Bundle after December 8th (the Exposure X release date), then the Exposure X Bundle is a free upgrade for you.

© Andrea Livieri

In case you aren’t familiar with the previous Photo Bundle, or with each of the three apps, here’s a quick rundown on each:

• Exposure X non-destructive editing and organizing tools make it easy for you create beautiful images and manage your photo library. A few standout features are:
  • Hundreds of evocative film styles as starting points for developing your own style
  • Robust editing tools to refine your images
  • A streamlined workflow that eliminates fussy, time-consuming tasks like importing images and managing catalogs
  • Extensive organizational tools to help you manage your photos
  • A UI that’s customizable and intuitive
• Snap Art natural media tools enable you to easily transform your photos into gorgeous, handcrafted paintings that look like they were created using oil paints, watercolors, etc.
• Blow Up image enlargement technology makes it easy for you to enlarge your photos while keeping them crystal clear.

With these tools at your fingertips, you have a complete photo editor that enables you to create captivating images in a variety of styles. You can also move quickly through your workflow, so that you can get back to shooting.

If you’re shooting professionally, you can deliver more value to your clients with these cool styles and treatments. See here for an awesome case study.  If you’re shooting for your family or for yourself, you can bring an unexpected look to portraits, landscapes, and any other style that you shoot.

Visit the product page for each app if you’d like to learn more: Exposure X, Snap Art 4, Blow Up 3.

The Exposure X Bundle mothership lands on April 19th, so watch the skies!

The post The Exposure X Bundle Touches Down April 19th! appeared first on Exposure Software.

From street level, determining the precise size of the ad was difficult. I’d guess it was 8 x 10 feet. Though in this case the actual dimensions didn’t really matter. Put simply, it far exceeded standard print sizes and still looked stunning. Now, if you’re anything like me and have done your research on cameras, sensors, and resolution, you may have expected this to be captured with a full frame DSLR and perhaps a professional quality lens. You would be wrong. In fact, it was shot on an eight megapixel iPhone 6.

Apple reviewed thousands of non-commissioned images before settling on the final 57 for display. They were processed with the typical array of photo editing apps and printed to billboard size. Now, some of you may be thinking, “yeah but it’s an Apple ad so they had access to the best photo enlargement software, interpolation tools, etc.” You’d be correct as the ad actually says “image optimized for larger format” in the upper right corner. Here’s the thing; you have the ability to do this as well. For starters, the bicubic smoothing option in Photoshop does an acceptable job at reducing jaggies. For even more control, Alien Skin’s photo enlargement tool Blow Up resamples while keeping details remarkably sharp.

What does this mean? You can remove the next camera body from your shopping cart and make massive prints with the model you own right now. I find that incredibly empowering. That 10 megapixel DSLR from 2008? It’ll do just fine. So will the 16 megapixel micro 4/3 body or the Sony with compressed Raw files. The key is to capture a technically sound image in the camera at the time of exposure. This quality file will hold up better to more post production in photo enlargement software and super sized prints. Of course good light also helps, but perhaps the biggest impact comes from the quality of the lens.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am in no way advocating a massive DSLR fire sale. The artistic control of a manual camera is undoubtedly far more powerful than any point and shoot or phone. What I am noting however, is that all of the megapixel talk, sensor comparisons and new camera reviews are designed to sell more merchandise, not make you a better artist.

I can see the heated comments now; “more megapixels give me more cropping space.” Sure, but why this sudden need to crop so heavily? For example, Henri Cartier-Bresson didn’t crop at all. Instead, he only included what he wanted in the viewfinder. His results speak for themselves.

In checking the submission requirements for Getty images, you’ll notice that files need to be 50MB. Even on most full frame camera, resampling in photo enlargement software is necessary to accomplish this. Yet despite the interpolation, these images are of high enough quality for the world’s largest stock photography agency and all of their clients. Still think you need more resolution? Look at the list of approved cameras for Getty. You’ll see older models such as the 10 megapixel Canon 40D.

What I really saw in that billboard was more than just an ad for the latest smart phone. It was a sign that we’ve allowed the promise of the next best thing to cloud our vision for far too long. This has been perpetuated by marketing campaigns, forum chatter and magazine advertorials. As camera sales continue to decline, this noise will only grow louder to drum up new business. When it does, think back to this large billboard created with a camera phone. There may be no end in sight for the megapixel race, but it doesn’t mean you have to run in it to succeed. A wise man once said, “if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat”. I’d rather be a photographer.

The post Photo Enlargement: The Great Resolution Hoax appeared first on Exposure Software.

What’s sharpening for?

Sharpening is a processing technique used to bring out detail and give your image presence. It’s primarily used to negate blurring effects that occur inside of the camera–usually caused by interpolation and the anti-aliasing filter.

How does it work?

Software detects transitions–edges–and amplifies the contrast to make them more pronounced. When applied correctly, sharpening will help your image pop. Above or beyond this amount is too much. If you can see the sharpening, it’s too much. Over sharpening is a common newbie photographer blunder. Be careful, and go easy on it.

Notice the brightened pixels in the oversharpened image.

Sharpening rule of thumb

Sharpen after you size your image for output, not before. If you are making a 24”x36” print, the sharpening amount will be radically different than if you’re posting a shot on Facebook. If you resize an image after sharpening, the tedious work you did to sharpen will get clobbered. First, size, then sharpen.

Photoshop Sharpening:

A lot of photographers use native tools in Photoshop to do their sharpening dirty work. Photoshop has a number of sharpening filters to choose from. They are clearly divided into two groups: generic and custom. Filters like Sharpen, Sharpen Edges, and Sharpen More are generic–meaning you don’t have any control over the sharpening they do.

The custom sharpening filters–Unsharp Mask and Smart Sharpen–give you adjustment parameters to customize the effect. Unsharp Mask applies sharpening in accordance to a threshold value set by the user. Smart Sharpen is similar, but it allows for you to designate what type of blur to remove such as Gaussian, Motion, or Lens. Gaussian blur is similar to a low-level softness introduced by camera sensors’ low-pass filter, so it’s the most common type.

Basic Sharpening Controls:

Let’s take a step further and talk about the sharpening settings, which are the Amount, Radius, and Threshold parameters.

Amount

This signifies the aggressiveness of the application, which is usually determined by a visual inspection. It’s recommended to confirm sharpening when viewing your image at a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio, depending on the output size. These magnification levels are more accurate because your computer isn’t randomly squashing pixels together. Make sure the math works out, first. When in doubt, use 1:1.

See how the sharpening renders differently when viewed at different sizes?

Radius

This controls the distance (in pixels) surrounding a given pixel to which the sharpening is applied. There are two schools of thought when it comes to proper sharpening. One side uses a large radius, the other–small. Using a larger radius usually allows for a stronger amount of sharpening to be applied with good results. On the other hand, the smaller radius sharpening technique is more precise, which can keep artifacting at a minimum. In either case, be careful with sharpening, overly-aggressive sharpening can ruin a photo. I advise to err on the side of safety. Use just enough to make the image pop.

Threshold

This specifies a minimum amount of value difference between the center pixel and it’s surrounding pixels. A threshold value of 0 applies the sharpening to the entire image. The higher the value, the less of the sharpening you see. This is used to avoid sharpening smooth areas that may contain noise like sky.

A heavy amount of sharpening was applied to this image for demonstration purposes.

These brief descriptions may sound like Greek, and that’s okay. Below are practical applications of these ideas in layman’s terms–mostly.

Lightness Sharpening:

Sharpening the Lightness channel is one of the most reliable sharpening procedures out there, but it’s a major pain in the butt with Photoshop alone. I use sharpening at output, meaning it’s one of the last steps in my image processing workflow. If I’m using Photoshop, I’ll have an image with dozens of layers, so my machine is running slow and, at times, it’s laggy. At this point I don’t want to perform a touchy adjustment like sharpening when it’s working like this.

Easy solutions exist. I can: 1: Use Exposure’s sharpening, bypassing the Photoshop mode change work-around. 2: Use Blow Up to sharpen and resize my image for output in a single step. 3: Ignore the lagginess of my computer, and go through with the mode change procedure.

Easy Way #1 – Exposure:

Exposure performs 9 steps in Photoshop with one click. The Lightness Channel checkbox, on the Sharpening panel, designates the sharpening algorithm–similar to Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask–to apply to the lightness channel of your image. This makes sharpening adjustments only on the tonal values of the image, leaving the image’s colors alone. This produces crisp and clear sharpening.

Easy Way #2 – Blow Up:

Blow Up is extremely easy to use. Just open your image and run Blow Up. Then, choose your output size from the presets. If you’d like more sharpening, you can add it with the handy sharpening sliders below, or again, use the presets. Click, click, boom–you’re done. The added value of Blow Up are the presets themselves. There are options that will automatically correct for blurring of different types, such as inks and paper types.

Way #3 – Photoshop:

When sharpening in Photoshop, you may opt to use sharpening while in RGB mode, but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you’re not a Photoshop guru. However, if you’re not intimidated by techie step-by-step procedures, here’s how:

1. Duplicate the image layer Cmd+J/Ctrl+J. If you’re using an image with multiple layers, use Cmd/Ctrl+Alt/Option+Shift+E (Duplicate visual and merge)

2. Go to Image>Mode>LAB

3. Don’t Flatten!

4. Select the Channels Tab on the Layers Panel

5. Select the Lightness Channel

6. Run Unsharp Mask (Or whatever you’d like)

7. Go to Image>Mode>RGB

8. Don’t Flatten!

9. Visually confirm sharpness is accurate

I prefer to forgo this procedure and use one of the other options above. If you aren’t happy with the sharpening, you have to trace back through these steps with better calibration.

In conclusion, we’ve talked a little about sharpening, what it is, what it does, how it behaves, and we’ve covered a couple of basic workflows. This topic is a gray area in terms of being a subjective topic. Although photographers, retouchers, and graphics gurus don’t see eye-to-eye on the perfect amount to apply, they all agree that too much is just too much.

You can use Exposure or Blow Up in demo mode. All of our products are fully functional during their trial period. Grab the installers and try the products out for yourself.

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Working with technology has many challenges. For example, try to switch between the iPad and the computer on a single piece. It was tough for me to learn how to convert my work into printable files large enough for print sales and art exhibits. There were just too many confusing questions to ask before deciding to print.

Now I have a secret weapon, Blow Up from Alien Skin Software. Blow Up makes resizing a breeze.

Here is a small image of one of my paintings made with an iPad and Photoshop. When I do this, I focus on a few different things when resizing with Blow Up.

Final Painting Before Resizing

First I make sure the hard edges are tack-sharp. This helps features like eyes read clearer and at farther distances. The Sharpen Edges slider was made for this. Also, the paint should look crisp, not smoothed.

300% Enlargement

300% Enlargement

Next I’ll take a close look at the detail of the paper grain, for paintings it’s extremely important. Blow Up can simulate film grain with the Add Grain slider. This makes smooth areas look more detailed and natural.

300% Enlargement

The Blow Up presets do the majority of the work. I occasionally make tweaks, but rarely need to. Blow Up takes the hassle out of printing so I can concentrate on my painting.

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I call this painting style PhotoSymphonies. It all starts with a photo, goes through iPad apps, and continues into Photoshop. Right now my PhotoSymphonies tutorials are on sale. Visit my Digital Paint Shop for more information and  freebies to download. If you want a “Boxer Babe” print it’s on Fine Art America. For more information, more lessons, and more fun find me on Facebook, on PIXIQ, and on my blog.

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