Tag Archives: resolution

Super Resolution

The most recent update for Adobe Photoshop includes a function called Super Resolution.  Many of the third party plugins and stand alone image processing tools come with tools to increase the resolution of images.  In Photoshop you used to have a basic way to increase resolution but it wasn’t that clever and could introduce odd artifacts.  I had been advised to use it in small increments rather than one big increase to reduce the problems but I hardly ever used it.

The new addition to Photoshop is apparently based from machine learning.  If the PR is to be believed, they took loads of high res images and low res versions of the same image and the machine learning came to recognize what might be there in the small shot from what it knew was in the large shot.  I don’t know what the other packages aim to achieve but this new tool in Photoshop has been doubling the resolution of the shots I have played with.  You end up with a file four times the size as a result of this doubling of dimensions.

I have tried it out on a couple of different shots where the resolution was okay but not terribly large and where a higher res shot might prove useful.  So far the tool is available through Camera Raw in Photoshop – not Lightroom.  You need to update Lightroom in order to import the DNG files it produces.  There is a suggestion that Lightroom will get this capability in time which would be more user friendly from my perspective.

My computer is not cutting edge so it takes a little while to process the images.  It forecasts five minutes but seemed to complete the task way faster than that.  In the examples here, I attach a 200% version of the original shot and a 100% version of the new file.  There seems to be a definite benefit to the output file.  I wouldn’t describe this as earth shattering but it is useful if the original file is sharp enough and I might have a need for this for a few items over time.

Web video sizing

I have been getting more and more interested in video work in the last couple of years.  Shooting video at the same time as stills is a regular feature of any shoot I am now on.  I am even getting better at planning my shot requirements for the video in order to have some hope of putting together a relatively coherent piece later.  The recent ISAP symposium had some good information on that.  However, that is not the point of today’s piece.  Instead, I am thinking about video size.

I have a YouTube channel on which I upload my content.  As s shameless plus, if you want to check it out, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/EdgcumbePhoto and you can see the videos I have previously uploaded.  Subscribe if you want and it will let you know about all of the exciting new videos I upload!  Okay, we return from that commercial break and resume normal programming.  I shoot everything in HD and edit the footage for 1080p output.  This can result in some quite large files.  YouTube allows you to upload full 1080p so that is what I have been doing.

Unfortunately, our current internet connection is not helpful here.  While we have pretty decent download speeds, the upload speeds are very slow.  DSL was not designed for upload and consequently, the upload speeds have not kept pace with the download speeds and the needs of users generating more and more content.  A recent video I made was about eight minutes long.  The 1080p version of this was nearly 2Gb.  Uploading this took over a day!!!

Now, when I watch videos on YouTube, what resolution do I watch them at?  I certainly like HD footage but I only ever use 720p.  This is a combination of avoiding bandwidth issues as well as the size of my monitors.  There really is no need to be any larger.  I wonder whether this is normal.  I started looking at what is available on other videos I was watching and quite a few only go to 720p.  I thought a quick experiment was in order.  The eight minute video I mentioned before can easily be regenerated at 720p so I did that.  The file size came out to just over 300Mb.  That is a pretty dramatic reduction in file size and upload time.

I think I have been wasting time and bandwidth creating files too large for anyone to need.  I am going to stick with 720p for a while and see how things work out.  We might have access to a different net connection before too long and I might check out upload speeds then but, for now, this seems to be a far more sensible approach.

How Many Megapixels?

How many is too many?  I really don’t know.  I refer to the number of pixels that can be squeezed onto the sensor for a digital camera and what is desirable or not.  Over the years the camera manufacturers have steadily increased the number of pixels on their sensors and come up with ever greater resolutions as a result.  This has been both beneficial and problematic.  What I am not sure about is whether I am missing the point with all of this.

My first DSLR was a Canon EOS 10D.  It was a 6.3Mp camera – something that would now be considered unacceptable on a cell phone.  It was a great camera, even if it did have a number of limitations that would be considered unheard of today.  However, for its day it was very good.  I had full page images printed in magazines from it with absolutely no problem.

As the megapixel wars got going, I was adopting larger and larger file sizes by default.  I would tell anyone who asked that megapixels were not the most important thing when buying a camera and there were plenty of other issues to consider.  I certainly don’t mind having a more dense file when I need to crop in to a shot but the impact on memory cards, the need for ever larger hard drives and the upgrades to computers to process the larger files were downsides that I didn’t appreciate.

For a while it seemed like the pixel count had leveled off a bit and the focus was on gaining better noise performance at high ISO settings.  This seemed like a very worthwhile approach for me.  However, big sensors are now back in play with the Nikon D800 leading the way and Canon talking about some large sensor cameras to come.  (I think it is worth noting that, since the pixel count is a function of the square of the linear resolution, these larger counts do not translate in to a huge improvement in linear resolution.  Yes, you do get more detail but it isn’t quite as mind-blowing as some will suggest.)

Am I a dope for not welcoming this?  Am I taking a Luddite approach in sounding happy with what I had and not appreciating the advances?  Do I just accept that all of my gear has to be upgraded periodically to stay in line with the latest thing whether it is camera file sizes, the processing requirements of new generation software or the interface needs of the latest devices.  I’m sure there are some benefits to having such dense files but I am not sure that they matter for what I do.

As for the uses for large file sizes, there is always much discussion about printing big or using for billboards.  Only a photo nerd looks at a picture from six inches and billboard resolutions are actually quite poor.  I wonder what a good resolution level really is.  Anyone care to suggest the perfect compromise?