Zooming in to a subject

[Maggie]

I have a vague recollection of some programme that can blow up a small bit of a photo to make out what part of a photo is. A colleague of mine took a photo in Banff Scotland and when he put it into his computer a white figure appears somewhere in the middle. He had not noticed this at the time the shot was taken and he sent it to me see what I made of it. There is a ghostly story to this as well and very sad, and it appears that this woman appears every now and again since about 1794. I would probably have taken it with a pinch of salt but Stan, apart from being a highly respected engineer is also Chairman of The Banff Historical Trust and knows his local history backwards and is also a published poet aka The Bard of Banff. I am probably as curious now as Stan is to see what that figure is and I seem to remember in one of my Photoshop Magazines reading about this programme that blows up photos to define parts of it. Can anyone direct me. If I could get a 30 day trial it might just do the trick. It could just be a bit of white plastic but I am itching to know. Thanks for any pointers.

Maggie X

[Happy]

Since I haven't seen the image you are talking about I can't say, but in most cases small images won't enlarge past a certain point. A small image of a person, for instance, will seem as though it has features such as eyes or a mouth. This is because your mind accepts that they are there and fills in the details even though the details can’t be seen. When you enlarge that image you find that the details in the eyes and mouth are nothing but dark shapes with no visual detail at all. This is because the camera never captured it to begin with and the more you enlarge it the less detail you will have.

That being said, some people use a software program called Genuine Fractals. From their website (http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2): Genuine Fractals 5 is a revolutionary step forward for image enlargements. The new Genuine Fractals 5 Photoshop plugin has received a complete overhaul that combines new scaling technology, faster performance, new features, new user interface and greater ease of use that makes this industry standard Photoshop plug-in even better than before. There is a demo download.

I have not used this program, so I can’t recommend it, but it seems to match what you are looking to do.

[cesium]

There are limits to what imange manipulation will do, regardless of the sci-fi stories, it simply will not restore information that is not there in the first place. Because of flaws in the original image, it is often possible for our mind to see an image where none actually existed.


As to the story, I don'k know about this one, but a large number of similar stories have been show to be actually rather recent fabrications, i.e. someone started the story that the image was seen from date xxxx and that took hold in the popular imagination.

One example was a long standing sad story about a woman killed on the way to do a performance at an opera house, her ghost was said to inhabit the building and many people 'felt something' on the 'anniversary' of her death. Except a search of records and newspapers turned up no coroners report, no record of the alleged performance, no record of a horse cart accident on that night. Great story, but alas, not real.

[Ez2bFish]

Maggie -

Alien Skin Software makes a plug-in called BlowUp 2 for Photoshop.
http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/index.aspx

They have a Demo version too! Good luck. Let us know what it looks like when you see it bigger. :)

[Maggie]

Thanks very much all. I will post it when I get it looking bigger. It was the genuine fractuals I had been raking my brains to remember but will also try the Blow Up 2 one as well.

[Dave]

Reading it again .... I googled "Banff ghost" and got lots of stuff about some hotel in the town of Banff CANADA!

For image enhancement I can only suggest you try a "medium" setting :lol:

[Maggie]

If you google in "The Bard of Banff" you will get sites of Stan Bruce's poems and stories but not sure if that one is in. He did e-mail the story about the white lady after I asked for it but I must have deleted it as my mailbox at work was in overflow. It has something to do with a soldier who was killed saving his army superior and his widow is seen wearing a white blanket and her husbands long johns (to Americans I think they would be called old fashioned underwear that go down to the ankles). That is the story anyway. I will put the pictures somewhere and post the link so you can see when I figure out how to do it. In the meantime I am off to download the two suggestions.