Changing a LQ pic to a HQ pic

Hi, I was wondering if there is a way to change a very low and grainy quality picture to a high quality, or at least clearer picture when the picture is Low quality to begin with (is there a way to do it with photoshop?) and could someone explain the steps to doing it?

An example would be like in the movies, where researchers look at a low quality picture of someone on a security cam, and can clear the picture up in a second. Is that even possible??
Thanks!

 

Look for the sharpen functions or the JPEG Artifacts remover. At least that's what it's called in Paint Shop Pro.

 

is there anything else you can do? Because after I sharpen the image about 3 or 4 times it starts to look really grainy. thanks again

 

Hi, most of what you see in movies regarding turning a blur into a sharp image of a suspect and such is pure fiction.

If you are starting out with a small, poor quality source file, there is no way I know of to change it into a large, clear picture.

You can go high/large > low/small but not low/small > high/large.

I'm a professional photographer (see www.aeronauticpictures.com) and my old (soon to be re-launched) stock photo section has viewable images no larger than 468 pixels @ 72 dpi - they are big enough to get a sense of the quality for a client but not large enough to use in a full page magazine ad or billboard. They could be used on a website too, of course, but that's also easier to catch.

Hope this helps!

 

Correct. Besides a bit of touching up there's no way of reversing compression. The data is permanently lost.

 

Oh, I see. It looks so real in all of the movies lol. Thank you both for your help

 

You are most welcome, of course. Wish I could have shared the secret!

 

Never trust anything that you see in the movies..

 

To increase the size, just click Image -> Image Size
To make image brighter, Image -> Adjusment -> Level or
Image -> Adjusment -> Exposure, just move the slider as needed.

You may learn some usefull tips here http://rudyw7.blogspot.com/

Go on practice...