Photoshop depixelation

[stefanmz]

Hey,so I have an image in Photoshop which was blurry, so I traced it with the pen tool, made a color fill out of it, so I basically I redrew it as a shape and then I did sharpen to make it clear and ot blurry. But now the pixels are very large when I zoom in. Is there a way to make them samller or smoothen them? In Photoshop I know if I make it a vector it's fine but the design has to be done in Photoshop.

[Needfuldoer]

What size (in pixels) and resolution (in DPI) are you working at?

 

If your canvas is screen-size at 72 DPI, things are going to get pixel-y fast when you zoom in.

[minibois]

When enlarging this part of the image you can use an upscaling algorithm. Instead of 'None'/'Nearest Neighbor' you can use Linear/Cubic/Lanczos/etc.

Alternatively - and this is what I'd really recommend - just trace the image in a vector program (i.e. Inkscape or Illustrator) and export it to a raster image (at your desired resolution) to import it to Photoshop again to work on it further.

 

Even more alternatively to that, if you want the rest of the image at a better resolution, you could use an upscaling program (like Waifu2x), but that may require some more tweaking of the settings to get right.

[stefanmz]

1 hour ago, minibois said:

When enlarging this part of the image you can use an upscaling algorithm. Instead of 'None'/'Nearest Neighbor' you can use Linear/Cubic/Lanczos/etc.

Alternatively - and this is what I'd really recommend - just trace the image in a vector program (i.e. Inkscape or Illustrator) and export it to a raster image (at your desired resolution) to import it to Photoshop again to work on it further.

 

Even more alternatively to that, if you want the rest of the image at a better resolution, you could use an upscaling program (like Waifu2x), but that may require some more tweaking of the settings to get right.

ok thanks!

[stefanmz]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

What size (in pixels) and resolution (in DPI) are you working at?

 

If your canvas is screen-size at 72 DPI, things are going to get pixel-y fast when you zoom in.

well the canvas is 300ppi but the image does not cover the whole canvas and it's significantly lower resolution 

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, stefanmz said:

well the canvas is 300ppi but the image does not cover the whole canvas and it's significantly lower resolution 

Resize the image to 300ppi, then retrace ?.

I'm not exactly clear about the context

[stefanmz]

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

Resize the image to 300ppi, then retrace ?.

I'm not exactly clear about the context

I might try that as well

 

[Avocado Diaboli]

When you're done drawing the shapes with the pen tool, just resize them with free transform (Ctrl+T) before rasterizing them. The pen tool is already treated as a vector within Photoshop, so you can scale it as much as you want without losing detail.

 

 

 

[stefanmz]

3 hours ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

When you're done drawing the shapes with the pen tool, just resize them with free transform (Ctrl+T) before rasterizing them. The pen tool is already treated as a vector within Photoshop, so you can scale it as much as you want without losing detail.

 

 

 

well awesome! but I don't want the image to be bigger. I want it to be the same size but look higher res. Is it a thing that if I resize it while it's a shape and make it bigger, then rasterize it and then make it smaller will it look better? Or is it exactly the same as if I rasterize it without making it bigger?

[Avocado Diaboli]

Just now, stefanmz said:

well awesome! but I don't want the image to be bigger. I want it to be the same size but look higher res. Is it a thing that if I resize it while it's a shape and make it bigger, then rasterize it and then make it smaller will it look better? Or is it exactly the same as if I rasterize it without making it bigger?

What you're trying to do is literally impossible. You can't make something "look higher res" without it being rendered at a higher resolution. Pixels only get so small, you can't subdivide them. Resizing a rasterized version down to the original size will not substantially improve anything and possibly even make it look worse because the scaling algorithm might place individual pixels where you don't want them. I'm getting the feeling that this is a case of the "XY problem", where you're asking for a solution that you think will lead to what you want instead of asking how to achieve what you want in the first place, i.e "I want to create a higher resolution looking image" instead of telling us why you want to do that.

[stefanmz]

32 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

What you're trying to do is literally impossible. You can't make something "look higher res" without it being rendered at a higher resolution. Pixels only get so small, you can't subdivide them. Resizing a rasterized version down to the original size will not substantially improve anything and possibly even make it look worse because the scaling algorithm might place individual pixels where you don't want them. I'm getting the feeling that this is a case of the "XY problem", where you're asking for a solution that you think will lead to what you want instead of asking how to achieve what you want in the first place, i.e "I want to create a higher resolution looking image" instead of telling us why you want to do that.

well I want to make a design but the princess has to be that size because I like how it looks. But I want it to look smooth when I zoom in and not pixelated. The thing is the background is a vector that's imported into photoshop so it's rasterized. But it's a very high res image even as a png and even though in my design it's cropped it still looks awesome and even though it gets a bit blurry at some point it still looks good(high res) and not pixelated when I zoom in. I want the same thing with the princess so it looks like it fits there , even though it does look like that from a distance I want it to be like that when you zoom in as well. And I though Photoshop had some image enhance mechanisms that could achieve that. Even if it's a. trick and technically it's not doing that. If it looks like that then it's fine. Right now the only problem is the big pixels on the edge, otherwise it looks sharp and fine.

[stefanmz]

23 hours ago, minibois said:

When enlarging this part of the image you can use an upscaling algorithm. Instead of 'None'/'Nearest Neighbor' you can use Linear/Cubic/Lanczos/etc.

Alternatively - and this is what I'd really recommend - just trace the image in a vector program (i.e. Inkscape or Illustrator) and export it to a raster image (at your desired resolution) to import it to Photoshop again to work on it further.

 

Even more alternatively to that, if you want the rest of the image at a better resolution, you could use an upscaling program (like Waifu2x), but that may require some more tweaking of the settings to get right.

so I decided to import it into illustrator. However for it to actually be a vector I made shape layers using pen tool of the princess and those are vectors right? Then I saved the psd. So now if I import the psd in illustrator will the vectors still be vectors and will I be able to scale them and then export that as SVG to import into Photoshop. Also will that make any difference? Because after importing into Photoshop I am going to have to downscale anyway(and it's already a raster image as of importing). Or should I just not change the size export it as vector from illustrator and then import into Photoshop? Will that make a difference?

[Avocado Diaboli]

@stefanmzWait, I thought you said the background is already a vector image? Just import that into Illustrator and do everything in there. Once you're done, just export it at the size you intend it to have and you're done. No need to involve Photoshop into any of this whatsoever. Unless of course you're once again describing the problem really poorly.

[stefanmz]

18 minutes ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

@stefanmzWait, I thought you said the background is already a vector image? Just import that into Illustrator and do everything in there. Once you're done, just export it at the size you intend it to have and you're done. No need to involve Photoshop into any of this whatsoever. Unless of course you're once again describing the problem really poorly.

yeah I guess I could do that. I don't have a vector of the princess but I could trace the image in illustrator and create one so yeah. It will just be more work but maybe it will be worth it. I mean it already looks fantastic when you don't pixel peep(is that how you spell that) so I don't know I will think about it, if it's even worth it. Also I don't have illustrator and I can't seem to find a worthy replacement. I bought Amadine from the App Store but either I can't understand how it works or it sucks

[stefanmz]

1 hour ago, Avocado Diaboli said:

@stefanmzWait, I thought you said the background is already a vector image? Just import that into Illustrator and do everything in there. Once you're done, just export it at the size you intend it to have and you're done. No need to involve Photoshop into any of this whatsoever. Unless of course you're once again describing the problem really poorly.

you or anyone else got any good illustrator replacements. I don't have illustrator in my plan and I can't pay for it right now so....I don't want to pirate it especially on a MacBook(it's probably even more difficult there) so anything good?

[stefanmz]

nevermind I actually realized the image was already 3000x3000px or something like which is hi-res enough and no need for zooming in. and it looks good if zoomed out.  I just had the size in cm and didn't realze how big it is