How to increase image resolution in Photoshop?

Have you ever tried to resize your photo or other image using Photoshop? It has several options, but not of them work the same.

In this short tips&tricks article I’ll show you the best way (existing in Photoshop CC) of increasing the image resolution with much more details and less fake view.

Step #1

Check your settings. Go to “Edit – Preferences – Technology Previews”. Activate “Enable Preserve Details 2.0 Upscale”. After this a new option in “Resample” will appear – “Preserve Details 2.0”.

Step #2

If you need to upscale / increase resolution of your image you just need to select “Image – Image Size”, select “Preserve Details 2.0” in Resample option. You may change the noise level upon your taste. And then just press OK button.

This option allows you to increase the resolution of an image without adding extra artifacts that reduce the “resolution realism” of an image. Colour tones and different details are kept fine, even when upscaling to much higher resolutions.

Comparison of different upscale modes in Photoshop CC

Usually, most people use “Automatic” resize mode or “Bicubic Smoother (enlargement)”.

Here is the original image (resolution 700px long side, cropped).

We definitely can see individual pixels. So, let’s start from the most popular option – Automatic. Resized to 3000px long side, cropped.

Here we can see the increased details. Automatic mode really makes its job. But if to have a better look onto the image, we can detect some artifacts.

Now we’ll use Bicubic Smoother (enlargement). Resized to 3000px long side, cropped.

In this case Photoshop reduced the volume of artifacts, but we’ve lost a lot of details. The image looks smoother and softer. This option probably would be fine for portraits, but it definitely shouldn’t be used for some more “detail featuring” image.

Now let’s try Preserve Details 2.0. Resized to 3000px long side, cropped.

Hope you can see the difference. We have plenty of details, but with smoother texture, with less artifacts.

Preserve Details 2.0 mode is a good choice if you need to add some details or increase the size of your images. Just fine-tune the noise slider for best looking result. This mode can be used for portraits, landscapes, food and other types of images.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this short tips&tricks article for maximizing the use of Photoshop features.