Hi, I was wondering how do you enlarge images without stretching them? For example, I have a little pic which is about 350 x 200 pixels. I want to enlarge this pic to use in a layout. I have Adobe Photoshop 7 and Paint Shop Pro 8. When I try to enlarge the image, it just makes it look stretched and the quality is poor. How can I enlarge the image without spoiling the quality of it? Thanks for any help! :)

You can't really... you can't resize an image without some distortion, so the bigger you want it the more distorted it's going to look unfortunately.

One way of going around this is by englarging it and then 'softening' the image. This will reduce the jagged edges, but might make the image look blurry.

in photoshop try 'image' --> 'resize' or something to that affect and set the checkbox to lock the proportions. then put in the new image size (i recommend using pixels). this will keep the image from getting skewed.

as for the quality there isn't much you can do but try what toolman recommended.

sorry if the menu items aren't correct i'm not sitting in front of photoshop but it's there.

If you want to keep the image the same size, and only change the size of the layout, go to Image > Canvas Size. You can adjust it there.....I believe there's an option about not retaining proportions, so the image stays the same but the background area (white) increases. I think that's what you're talking about...if not, you'll have to touch up the poor quality.

Oh well, thanx anyway! :)

The only method I've ever used that works, requires a high quality printer and a high quality scanner. I print out my graphic, scan it back in at a very high dpi, much larger than I want it to end up, then shrink it down to size. Though there are a million ways to lose quality, and it's probably easier to just resize it and retouch. I mostly used it when I was working for the school literary magazine and had to turn business cards into full page ads.