[Leica] Up-resolution with PS Enhance and with Gigapixel

[Howard L Ritter Jr]

Ken—

My experience so far is similar. A 2x up-res’ed Gigapixel image looks very nearly as good as a native image taken at twice the FL with the same lens and camera. Processing it through Sharpen sometimes improves it, sometimes makes it too “crunchy” as you say, and sometimes has very little effect. For example, applying it to the Gigapixel crop of Selfoss that I posted made it barely sharper, at the expense of adding a haloing artifact. But on some of my astroimages, applying the two in tandem (Gigapixel –> Sharpen) works fantastically well.

—howard

> On Jun 28, 2021, at 6:27 PM, Ken Carney via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> Howard,
> 
> What I am seeing (on the images I've been playing with) is that Gigapixel adds quite a bit of definition to the raw file.  For example, a 2x Gigapixel image is sharper (in a good way) than the 2x Enhance file, which seems very close to the original cropped raw file..  A 4x Gigapixel viewed at 50% appears identical to the 2X Gigapixel image.  Applying Topaz Sharpen AI to the Enhance file results in "crunchy" sharpness compared to Gigapixel.  Gigapixel seems to be a better way to go, considering that you could go larger than 2x if needed.  Technology is great.  I used to lug 4x5 and 8x10 film cameras, now have a Fuji kit that fits in a small bag with four lenses, and you have taken it steps further.
> 
> Ken
> 
> On 6/28/2021 10:30 AM, Howard L Ritter Jr via LUG wrote:
>> I have two reasons for wanting to post just now. One is my recent trip to Iceland, a maiden voyage for my new Q2. The other is the recent availability of PS Enhance and Topaz Gigapixel AI. The two themes fit together nicely because up-res’ing could be a key to making the single-FL, high-Mpx Q2 even more versatile, by increasing the effective FL that can be realized from cropping and enlarging. I speculated that state-of-the-art up-res’ing by a factor of 2 might allow for decent prints (or viewing on a monitor) in the 25”-wide range of down to 25% crops (equivalent to FL 112mm). This is well past the Q’s ‘digital zoom’ limit of 75mm, which of course isn’t anything but a built-in crop since it (properly) doesn’t involve any image manipulation.
>> 
>> I’ll be posting an album of images from Iceland soon, as well as my impressions of the Q2. Here’s a first one, with a 117mm-equiv. 24% crop presented natively, after PS Enhance, and after Gigapixel. (I was aiming for a 25% crop, but this is where I landed.)
>> 
>> I’d welcome comments on the results themselves as well as your takes on the comparison of the two methods of up-res’ing.
>> 
>> 
>> http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Up-res+test/?g2_fromNavId=x2d271756 <http://www.gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/Up-res+test/?g2_fromNavId=x2d271756>
>> 
>> 
>> —howard
>> 
>> 
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