Amazing new capability in Lightroom

[Basil]

Well, it's amazing to me - though I'm sure there is other software that does similar. It's a new capability in the latest version of Lightroom called "Super Resolution". Basically what it does it allows you to double the size of an image while maintaining the original image sharpness, resolution, and clarity. If you stared with an image say 3000 x 4000 pixels and just used something like Preview to double the image size, you would find that you would have an image that is 6000 x 8000 but, if you zoomed in, you'd see much pixelation and loss of detail.

With Lightroom's Super Resolution feature, you can apply the super resolution tool to an image and the image will double in size, but the detail would remain was good as the original image. This could be great if you have an image you want to print, but it's just not large enough. You can double the size and lose no detail.

The down side is, once you apply this to an image, the resultant file size is MUCH larger than that of the original file. For example, I did this on a random bird image and the original raw file was about 19 MB, but the "super resolution" version wasn't just double the file size - it was nearly 200MB!

 

[GregW]

Check out topaz labs. They use AI to increase resolution by a claimed 600%. I haven't tried it yet and no real plans to. I can't really say I'm impressed by a x2 resolution bump for a x10 size hit. Thought many of my 24mb files balloon to 72mb on a flat layer TIFF.

 

[Basil]

I am familiar with Topaz and not trying to make a comparison here. I'm just happy they have added this capability to LR, which is my processor/ organizer of choice. Just for an experiment, I started with a House Finch on a power line. The image was 4000 x 3000 pixels. Then I made a super-sized version and then did a crop close-in on the bird on both.

The "original" cropped image is 716 x 954, whereas the "Super Resolution" cropped image is 1455 x 1940. To my eye, the super-sized version is just as clear (such as it is) as the normal cropped version. The "starting" image is not the original 4000 x 3000, but rather a down-sized version of 2000 x 1500 (file size of the original was too big to upload).

Original:


Normal-sized cropped image:




And the super-resolution cropped version (twice the size in real life)