Processing portrait

I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm
trying to clean up. After cloning out a facial blemish, I added .6 radius
Gaussian blur. Next, I lowered the harsh contrast and adjusted gamma -.90.
After all this, I used Irfanview to upsample the image by 150% using the
Lanczos resample filter.

I tried upsampling before adding the blur, but was not satisfied. Is there a
better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-S

On Jan 15, 7:40 am, "SimonLW" wrote:
I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm
trying to clean up. After cloning out a facial blemish, I added .6 radius
Gaussian blur. Next, I lowered the harsh contrast and adjusted gamma -.90.
After all this, I used Irfanview to upsample the image by 150% using the
Lanczos resample filter.

I tried upsampling before adding the blur, but was not satisfied. Is there a
better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-S

Working from a higher res helps. Why such a low res did you get this
emailed to you? 800x800 is not a very good size to work with. With a
higher res pic you can always go lower in res and maintain image
quality. But starting very small it is hard to upsize and maintain IQ.
You have maybe 3X to work with and that is pushing the image. Small
images also have many artifacts, like those produced by jpeg
compression, while not obvious in the original seem to become a major
part of an enlarged picture.
The only thing I can see you didn't do in correct order is the gaussian
blur, best done after resizing.

Tom

"SimonLW" wrote in message
...
I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm

better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-S

Hi.

The image is so small, that it would be very difficult to determine which
way of working gave the best result.

If you were to print it at the regular 300 Ppi, it would only be about
passport size.

You really need to practise on reasonable sized images, so that you can
asses which method works for you.

Roy G

"SimonLW" wrote in message
...
I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm
trying to clean up. After cloning out a facial blemish, I added .6 radius
Gaussian blur. Next, I lowered the harsh contrast and adjusted gamma -.90.
After all this, I used Irfanview to upsample the image by 150% using the
Lanczos resample filter.

I tried upsampling before adding the blur, but was not satisfied. Is there
a better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-S
Thanks for the reply guys. The photo is all I can find. It was from the
Canon G6, but it was down sampled and no original saved. Normally I work
from highest quality, highest res settings. The good news it has very high
sharpness from downsampling and it is a portrait of a female that can stand
to be softened anyway. I just don't want a pixilated look from trying to
stretch out a low res photo. I hope I can get an 8x10 out of it.

I'm using Paint Shop Pro 5. PSP5 does 95% of what I need, but lacks in-depth
histogram control and its 10 years old!. I wonder what else is available for
a low cost and does not license lock me from putting a copy on my laptop. I
was considering GIMP, but seems to be a lot of negatives about it.
-S

On Jan 15, 11:24 am, "SimonLW" wrote:
"SimonLW" wrote in ...I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm
trying to clean up. After cloning out a facial blemish, I added .6 radius
Gaussian blur. Next, I lowered the harsh contrast and adjusted gamma -.90.
After all this, I used Irfanview to upsample the image by 150% using the
Lanczos resample filter.

I tried upsampling before adding the blur, but was not satisfied. Is there
a better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-SThanks for the reply guys. The photo is all I can find. It was from the
Canon G6, but it was down sampled and no original saved. Normally I work
from highest quality, highest res settings. The good news it has very high
sharpness from downsampling and it is a portrait of a female that can stand
to be softened anyway. I just don't want a pixilated look from trying to
stretch out a low res photo. I hope I can get an 8x10 out of it.

I'm using Paint Shop Pro 5. PSP5 does 95% of what I need, but lacks in-depth
histogram control and its 10 years old!. I wonder what else is available for
a low cost and does not license lock me from putting a copy on my laptop. I
was considering GIMP, but seems to be a lot of negatives about it.
-S

Yeah on eof the joys of digital photography, accidently overrighting
the original, I try to get mine on the hardrive and on a CD/DVD before
I do anything with the images.
Why not try to upgrade PSP, maybe the cheapest alternative, check their
web site. Irfanview can resize, change names, resized in batch, and the
Lanczos filter is excellent, does those well but not much else. There
are sales on PSP (10?) all the time saw it in BJs $100 with a $60
rebate. The other alternative is Photoshop Elements. One interesting
alternative would be Lightroom from Adobe, currently free (beta), I'm
not sure how good it is as an editor.

Good Luck
Tom

tommy42 wrote:

Yeah on eof the joys of digital photography, accidently overrighting
the original, I try to get mine on the hardrive and on a CD/DVD before
I do anything with the images.
Why not try to upgrade PSP, maybe the cheapest alternative, check their
web site. Irfanview can resize, change names, resized in batch, and the
Lanczos filter is excellent, does those well but not much else. There
are sales on PSP (10?) all the time saw it in BJs $100 with a $60
rebate. The other alternative is Photoshop Elements. One interesting
alternative would be Lightroom from Adobe, currently free (beta), I'm
not sure how good it is as an editor.

It's excellent as a photo processor and digital asset manager, but it
does not do pixel based editing at all. In other words, no layers, no
cloning, no masking, no type, no heeling brush, etc.

In other words, it's perfect for the *photograhper* in many ways; other
photogs will want to stick with Photoshop; some will use both.

I recommend Elements over PSP as when, if, and as one wants to hit the
top level, PS, you already have a leg up on the interface.

--
John McWilliams

SimonLW wrote:
"SimonLW" wrote in message
...
I have a low res (800 on longest side), sharp, contrasty protrait. I'm
trying to clean up. After cloning out a facial blemish, I added .6 radius
Gaussian blur. Next, I lowered the harsh contrast and adjusted gamma -.90.
After all this, I used Irfanview to upsample the image by 150% using the
Lanczos resample filter.

I tried upsampling before adding the blur, but was not satisfied. Is there
a better order or different method return better results?
Thanks
-S
Thanks for the reply guys. The photo is all I can find. It was from the
Canon G6, but it was down sampled and no original saved. Normally I work
from highest quality, highest res settings. The good news it has very high
sharpness from downsampling and it is a portrait of a female that can stand
to be softened anyway. I just don't want a pixilated look from trying to
stretch out a low res photo. I hope I can get an 8x10 out of it.

I'm using Paint Shop Pro 5. PSP5 does 95% of what I need, but lacks in-depth
histogram control and its 10 years old!. I wonder what else is available for
a low cost and does not license lock me from putting a copy on my laptop. I
was considering GIMP, but seems to be a lot of negatives about it.
-S


GIMP is supposedly very good. I just found some of the stuff (like
simple cropping) to be too confusing. I'm quite happy with PhotoPlus, it
actually has a few things (like extraction) that I didn't find in PSP,
although I'm sure the functionality is there under a different name. I
believe all the more advanced packages do more than most people want and
have a leaning curve.
Dave Cohen