Upscaling or resizing pixel images has always been a difficult task. The issues
that we face usually with the upscaled version is that we will see a lot of
noise, pixelation over-sharpened or blurry lines. Now in Photoshop CC 2018 we
have an amazing new upscaling algorithm called Preserve Details 2.0 which does
an unbelievable job at avoiding all of these mistakes of the previous
algorithms thanks to the new artificial intelligence assisted technology called
Adobe Sensei. So it works all in the background analyzing the image and
helping you to make a better upscaled version of your image. So I'm just going
to show you that this is the actual pixel-size of this image so if I zoom in
closer it will just get pixelated so if I stay at 100% I can then go to the
image menu and choose image size where we can resize it and notice that
immediately here we have the Preserve Details 2.0 option surrounded by the
other two enlargement options. Bicubic smoother is something that we had in the
older versions of Photoshop then in CS4 or CS5 I think we got the original
Preserve Details enlargement option and in CC 2018 now we have this new one as well.
I'm just going to use the very original version of resizing and I'm
going to use 300% size and already here in the preview you can see what's going
to happen so this is how it looks when it's actually upscaled when I let go.
If I make this window a little bit bigger we can probably see more details
so if we just simply upscale the image on its own this is how it would look
like without any algorithm applied to it and when I let go we can see how the
bicubic smoother enlargement algorithm refines it. So it's slightly
better obviously we don't see stair-stepping on the lines here but it
gets too blurry and also around the edges it doesn't look that great.
So let me just zoom a little bit closer we can see again without the
Bicubic Smoother option and with it but then if I switch now to the other option
called Preserve Details you will see it gets already better because we have a
reduced noise option we can reduce that or set it to 100% and without making the
image look blurry we have much less noise in here so once again without the
algorithm and with the algorithm it looks like that I can again show you the
previous algorithm was this and Preserve Details 1 was like that but now if I
switch to the new one introduced in Photoshop CC 2018 we get an even better result.
Notice how the edges get so much better so we don't have that strong over
sharpened halo around the edges and also inside here we will have a much
cleaner outline. So all the details just really show much better in this new
version so once again without the algorithm and with the algorithm I don't
think I need to stress this any further how amazing this is and how well it
applies all around the image so we can go on the other edge as well and we can
see there how nicely all these details come out and once again comparing it to
the very original algorithm so number one number two and then number three so
it just gets better and better up to the point that I think now even doing three
times the scale of an original image we can still get away with it. So just to
show you from a distance that was the original size and this is how big we
managed to make it by upscaling it to 300% and if I press Cmd/Ctrl+1
I can quickly zoom in to the actual pixel size which is 100% zoom ratio and
even at that size we won't have a lot of noise and we also have nice sharp details
so no blurs or over sharpened edges. And just to compare them again
let's just move around the three images and see the difference between the three
different algorithms. Of course whenever you are enlarging images if you have the
Resample set Automatic it will use the new Preserve Details 2.0 for enlargement by default.