5 MP Raw Information: How Far Can Trendy Upscaling Push Them?

Megapixel rely is without doubt one of the most debated specs in images, and the query of how few you will get away with for giant prints is one which hardly ever will get a straight reply. Keith Cooper put that query to an actual check utilizing a digital camera from 2002 and precise prints made as we speak, and the outcomes are value seeing.

Coming to you from Keith Cooper, this detailed video walks by means of the total strategy of taking uncooked recordsdata from an Olympus E-20 — a 5 MP, CCD-sensor digital camera from round 2002 — and printing them at A3+ (13 x 19 in) on metallic paper utilizing an Epson ET-8550. The recordsdata are 2,560 x 1,920 pixels. That’s it. And Cooper prints them massive anyway. He runs them by means of Topaz Gigapixel AI (model 8) at 4x to 6x enlargement, which takes the pixel rely as much as roughly 10,000 x 8,000 earlier than any output sharpening. That’s an enormous ask from such a small file, and a part of what makes this value watching is seeing how far fashionable upscaling software program can truly carry a 20-year-old picture.

One factor Cooper addresses early is uncooked compatibility. Camera Raw helps the E-20’s uncooked recordsdata, however DxO PhotoLab doesn’t, and neither does a lot of the authentic software program that shipped with the digital camera. If you are working with outdated recordsdata from discontinued cameras, that is an actual limitation. He additionally flags a particular optical situation with this digital camera: blue and purple fringing that exhibits up close to shiny areas like sky. It’s not chromatic aberration within the conventional sense, and Camera Raw’s normal chromatic aberration checkbox will not absolutely repair it by itself. You have to make use of the fringing correction individually, and pushing it too laborious clips blue from the sky. Cooper explains the tradeoff clearly and exhibits what it seems to be like at excessive magnification earlier than and after correction.

What’s much less apparent moving into is how a lot of the ultimate consequence comes all the way down to selections made after the upscaling. Cooper opens the enlarged file in Photoshop, applies ranges and curves changes, after which makes use of Nik Collection (model 9) so as to add a refined layer of movie grain. The reasoning is sensible: the grain softens a number of the flatness that upscaling can introduce, and at print dimension, it is invisible and not using a magnifying glass. He additionally covers print sharpening, together with the often-ignored level that sharpening on display screen ought to look barely overdone as a result of the print will render it in another way than your monitor does. He’s additionally deliberate about which areas of a picture want no sharpening in any respect, particularly easy areas like clear sky, the place sharpening solely amplifies grain.

Check out the video above for the total rundown from Cooper, together with his side-by-side comparisons of various Gigapixel AI settings and his tackle whether or not a 5 MP print can realistically maintain up subsequent to output from a contemporary digital camera.