Sometimes you need to enlarge images to extreme big sizes and you just can’t get hold of any original that would have more details for your print. There is only one more important thing you can do, besides the things I’ve already discussed earlier: add noise. It might sound weird, but the fact is that in print it’s more pleasant to the eye to see an image that has some texture even if it doesn’t have sensible details rather than just big blurred patches of color. For example you can see this effect being used in the National Geographic magazine, where excellent and scientifically important low res images are presented at full page or even double page spread size.
In PhotoShop go to Filter/Noise/Add Noise. Try the different settings for different visuals. The illustration doesn’t give justice to this trick, because the benefits are much more evident in print and in big size.
Previous posts about enlarging and improving images are here: part one, part two and part three.
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