How can I enlarge my photos?

Q

I often want to enlarge my photos. Can you suggest a free and easy program to help me do this? David Phillip

A

To increase the size of an image, extra pixels need to be added - a process known as ‘interpolation’. The colour, brightness and other attributes of the new pixels will be determined by the surrounding pixels, but you’ll always see a drop in quality.

Microsoft Paint lets you resize images - click Resize, then tell it how big you want the image. However, you’ll get better results using GIMP ( www.gimp.org). Load your image into GIMP, select Image, then Scale Image. In the Image Size section, change the default ‘px’ (pixels) to ‘percent’, then type the scaling percentage you want. In the Quality section, choose your interpolation method – Cubic produces the best results for most photos, but try Linear if your images include text.

An effective alternative is the excellent A Sharper Scaling ( www.snipca.com/28778). Click the yellow folder on the left, locate your photo, then choose a scaling percentage in the box at the bottom right. Click the blue arrow button to see the result, then the yellow folder button to save the image. You can also resize an entire folder of photos. Click the red button with cascading squares at the top right, select your folder in the Source Folder section, then set the scaling percentage. Next, choose a save location and click Run.