Digital pictures are made up of thousands of pixels which makes it hard to maintain image quality when you resize them. Specifically, enlarged images can end up looking blurred or distorted as the pixels become visible. This can make your website look unprofessional and lower user engagement.
Fortunately, there are various ways to enlarge images without losing quality. For example, it’s best to start the process with a high-resolution picture and resize the image in smaller increments to pick up on a loss of detail. There are various image-resizing tools that you can use to do this.
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at why enlarged images can drop in quality. Then, we’ll discuss five key tips for maintaining quality during the resizing process. And, we’ll recommend some image enlarger tools to help. Let’s jump right in!
Why Do Enlarged Images Lose Quality?
Every digital image is made up of thousands of pixels, which are mapped to a fixed location on the image. The problem is that when you enlarge images, these pixels get stretched to cover a larger area which impacts image clarity and can result in a loss of detail.
That said, some image editing software can enlarge images by changing the pixel count (rather than adjusting the size of pixels). However, this still isn’t a viable solution since the software has to guess and fill in new pixels based on surrounding ones, which can make the image appear blurred or pixelated.
Why Is It Important to Enlarge Image Without Losing Quality?
Firstly, you’ll want to enlarge images without losing quality so that you can present a nice visual on your website. This is especially important for ecommerce sites that showcase product photos to appeal to potential customers.
However, this is also the case for any high-detail images and graphics. Besides obscuring detail, blurred or pixelated images can appear unprofessional and impact the way visitors perceive your overall brand.
On top of this, resizing images correctly can reduce the file size and make your website load faster. Since speed is a Google ranking factor, this can affect your position in the search results. A fast website also provides a better user experience (UX), which can help you reduce bounce rates.
This is also why it’s important to use a fast web host to deliver your images quickly. For instance, NameHero offers various plans, all of which come with high-performance caching to boost content delivery times:
This is especially important because image files can be very large, so they’re notorious for slowing down websites.
You can also find NameHero packages that are optimized for specific platforms like WordPress or WooCommerce. And, our plans provide plenty of other useful features like free domains, free SSL certificates, daily backups, automatic updates, and more.
How to Enlarge Images Without Losing Quality (5 Tips)
Now that you know why it’s a good idea to resize images without losing quality, let’s take a look at some tips to help you achieve this.
1. Use High-Resolution Image Sources
It’s best to start with a high-resolution image that provides more flexibility in the process. These images are highly detailed and contain more pixels, which means there’s more information to work with.
According to Adobe, anything over 300 PPI or 300 DPI is considered high resolution. You can check this on your computer by right-clicking on the image and selecting Properties. Then, navigate to the Details tab to see the image’s dimensions and resolution.
2. Resize Images in Small Increments
Another way to resize images without losing quality is to make adjustments in smaller increments. If you make a drastic change, you’re more likely to introduce blurriness and pixelation. Doing this step-by-step enables you to keep a close eye on the image quality.
3. Maintain the Original Aspect Ratio
Naturally, when you want to increase the size of an image, it’s going to get bigger. But, you can ensure that this happens proportionality by maintaining the original aspect ratio. Otherwise, sections of the image may get stretched which leads to a very noticeable loss of quality.
4. Get the Dimensions Right
The height and width of your image generally depend on where it will be featured. For example, a social media image will usually need to be smaller than a photo that’s going on your website.
You might also consider whether the majority of your visitors come from mobile or desktop devices to optimize images effectively. That said, 600 to 1200-pixel dimensions work well for many digital images. Of course, feel free to experiment with custom image dimensions to find what works for you.
5. Choose the Best File Formats
When enlarging images, you’ll need to consider the type of file that your image is saved as, because this will impact the quality. For example, PNGs work well for graphics since they don’t lose any data when they get resized. This means that the image is unlikely to become blurred or distorted.
JPEGs are another popular image file format, but when you compress your images, some data from the image gets deleted. Therefore, it can be better to opt for high-quality image formats like TIFF (or PNG) which preserve detail and reduce compression artifacts.
Best Tools to Enlarge Images Without Losing Quality
Now that you have some best practices for getting a larger image without losing quality, let’s take a look at the best tools for the job.
GIMP
GIMP functions like a free version of Adobe Photoshop and provides all the features you need for high-quality image manipulation. You’ll need to install and download the software onto your computer.
Then, select an image and go to Image > Scale Image to get started. You can set your desired dimensions and choose an interpolation method. Plus, you can export the enlarged image in various formats like PNG and WebP.
Let’s Enhance
Let’s Enhance leverages AI technology to increase image size while preserving the original details and clarity. It features a user-friendly interface, which is quite rare for such a sophisticated tool.
You’ll also find batch processing capabilities and artifact removal to gain clean, sharp results. Plus, it supports high-quality file formats like PNG and TIFF.
Upscale.media
Like Let’s Enhance, Upscale.media harnesses the power of AI to resize images without losing quality. You can bulk enlarge images in various formats including PNG, WebP, and HEIC.
The tool also ensures that your pictures maintain their vibrancy and color contrasts when you enhance them. It also comes with a seamless API integration to facilitate a smooth workflow.
Conclusion
Images enable you to show off your products and make content pages more engaging. But it can be difficult to make images larger without losing quality, since they often end up blurred or pixelated.
Here are five tips to resize images without losing quality:
- Use high-resolution image sources
- Resize images in smaller increments
- Maintain the original aspect ratio
- Get the dimensions right
- Choose the best file formats
Do you have any questions about how to make an enlarged image while preserving image quality? Let us know in the comments below!
Sophia is a staff writer at WordCandy.co, where she produces quality blog content for WordPress plugin and theme developers, hosting providers, website development and design agencies, and other online businesses.
I’d also add..if anyone’s enlarging older or previously edited images and notices artifacts or minor corruptions (especially with JPEGs), a repair tool can help. I once had to upscale some archived blog visuals that had weird glitches, and Stellar Repair for Photo did a decent job cleaning them up before editing. Saved me a lot of rework!