Expert: LizaL - 3/7/2006

Question
I am copying DVD/video cover photos off the internet to put on DVD labels I am making.  They are in JPEG form.  My problem is that some of these are too small, and if I enlarge them using my Avery label program, they are very fuzzy.  Is there some way to enlarge them on my computer and then copy them into my label program?  We have Windows XP/Internet Explorer 6. I'm not very computer savvy, as you can tell.  Thanks for your help!

Kathy  

Answer
Hi Kathy,

Well, there's really no good way to take a small picture and make it bigger without some suffering, especially in the case of pictures you copy from the internet.

When it comes to pictures you find online, think about Xeroxing a Xerox an unknown amount of times. It loses something in the quality each time you do it. And when you copy pictures from the internet, you don't know how many times they've been previously copied *before* you copy them. So they might not be the best quality when they get to you. That complicates things.

In Photoshop, you can open the image and under the Image pulldown menu, select Image Size and increase the resolution, which will result in increasing the picture (and fie) size. The trouble with this is that you're causing Photoshop to interpolate -- that is, compensate for the pixels that really aren't there. In order to increase the photo size, Photoshop must create pixels it *thinks* should be there. This usually leads to bad resolution when printed.

What I would do if I were you is search for images that are larger than you need, to begin with, and shrink them down, instead of enlarging them. Going from large to smaller is a better bet than the other way around. In Photoshop, use that same Image Size menu choice (under the Image pulldown menu) and just go smaller, rather than larger.

I don't know how your label program works -- so you should check to see what file formats it supports. Export the label from Photoshop in this file format.

Also, you might try re-creating any type that goes on the label yourself, as type shouldn't be saved as JPEG, anyway. Your best bet is to find and size the picture(s) in Photoshop, then import them into a page layout program like InDesign or Quark and add the type, then print from there. Again, check to see if your label program will support a TIFF, or other file format generated by a page layout program.

Hope this helps! Please post back if you need any assistance.

Lisa