Making Old Photos Larger

One of my hard rives has broken and I'm unable to get my old pictures from it. I know on previous forum sites and profile sites I did have pictures uploaded and I am able to take them again but of course when I uploaded them they uploaded in a small file so when I save them they aren't very big and when I try to enlarge them they become very ugly and pixelated.

Is there a program that can take a 800x600 picture and blow it up twice the size without distorting the image at all?

 

I use PhotoShop Pro. It will adjust photos to a larger size.

 

Cool, thank you. That's a subscription service isn't it?

 

Yes, I subscribe and use Photoshop (for my photos) and Premeier Pro (for my videos). If you have a sample photo of what you want enlarged, I can try to do it for you. Also, you can still get your images and data from your damaged drive. there is a relatively cheap cable that will allow you access to it. Maybe you have already tried that.

 

stick the drive in a bag of rice and put it in the freezer turned up on high/ super cold. leave in overnight, work fast/install frozen drive and retrieve data.

: I can not guarantee it will work .. Ive used this method twice and it worked, after I got my data even a second attempt to freeze the drive did not work.

 

It's hard to increase image size and maintain good quality. You could give Paint.NET a shot. That's my go-to application for image editing.

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Actually... what you could do is resize it, then open it in a photoshop-like app and mess around with some effects.

Here's a thread talking about resizing images without quality loss.
http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/21568/how-can-i-increase-the-size-of-a-jpeg-without-losing-quality

Seems like it also depends on the type of image. (jpg, png, bmp, etc)

 

Also, are you sure your hard drive is toast? There's this program called TestDisk that's pretty nifty. Apparently, it's used by forensic analysts to recover data from hard drives that have been 'nuked.' (Nuking, being the act of destroying your own hard drive) There are a number of reasons you're unable to access the data. BUT, if you can hook the hard drive up inside your computer or if you have a laptop, you can search for a "SATA IDE USB Adapter"

:unsure:
Something like this
Amazon: Sabrent USB 2.0 SATA IDE 2.5 3.5 INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply
NOTE: Stay away from the clear blue ones, as I've heard they can be faulty and/or break easily
This one, I've heard is the most reliable. Might be able to find a better price on eBay or something like NewEgg?

Hook up your hard drive to the adapter and run TestDisk. If the MFT or boot sequence is corrupted, there's a possibility TestDisk can fix it. The program itself is a bit complicated to use, but I'd be willing to walk you through the recovery process if it's something you want to do.

TestDisk works on all sorts of external drives (Hard drives, external hard drives, USB thumb drives, SD/mini/microSD cards) and I've had great results with it.
It is an advanced program though and has the potential to make your computer UNABLE TO BOOT.
So make sure to read up on it before jumping into a data recovery attempt.
TestDisk Homepage

 

The solution of this problem is to compensate for each enlarged pixel, so that it matches the properties of its nearest pixel. This method is called Fractal Interpolation or simply Fractals. It produces a much better result when an image is enlarged using this technique. In this regard, Perfect Resize is a software that allows you to resize your images smartly. It is available as standalone software as well as a plugin for Adobe Photoshop. The regular version costs $50 and the premium version which contains plugin for Adobe photoshop costs $150. Both versions are also available for a free 30 day trial. If you resize images on a regular basis, then we recommend you to go for Perfect Resize. It is expensive, but it is the best way to enlarge images.

 

I did download this 'paint' program and played with t a bit today. Although it does not have all the bells and whistles and plug-ins that Photoshop has. It works works very well on my Windows 10 64bit laptop.