I have some images from years back that are in low resolution. I don’t have the originals for them. Is there any way I can increase the resolution of these old images and enlarge them without losing quality so that they look fine when viewed on a laptop on my website?
If you find yourself in a situation where you must upscale an image, you can use the following methods while maintaining or improving quality:
Preferred Method – GenAI-Powered Upscaling
Use the e-upscale parameter in ImageKit: Upscale documentation here
This allows you to increase the resolution to 4× the original size using Generative AI. It works for images in the media library, or accessible from a connected external storage.
For example,
This is the original image which is 300px wide
https://ik.imagekit.io/ikmedia/docs_images/car_low_res.jpg
With e-upscale the width of gets increased to 1100px and it looks pretty good as well visually
https://ik.imagekit.io/ikmedia/docs_images/car_low_res.jpg?tr=e-upscale
Second Method - Manual Resizing + Sharpening
You can manually increase the image size by specifying width ( w ) and height ( h ) parameters larger than the input resolution. However, this will likely result in a blurry output. To counter this, you can apply some sharpening to the resized image.
For example, for the same image above, I can increase it to twice the size (600px) and add sharpening using e-usm parameter
https://ik.imagekit.io/ikmedia/docs_images/car_low_res.jpg?tr=w-600,e-usm-2-2-0.7-0.008
Note that excessive sharpening can introduce noise and artefacts.
Alternative for improving quality without increasing resolution
If you’re satisfied with the current image resolution but just want to enhance its overall quality, use the e-retouch parameter.
This enhances details, reduces noise, and improves overall image quality while keeping the original dimensions.
Though, it is always best to start with high-resolution content and downscale it using resizing parameters to fit your needs. So you should export the content from tools like Photoshop at a higher resolution, like over 1000 x 1000 pixels. Or, if you’re working with graphics or logos, using vector formats like SVG ensures that they can be scaled to any resolution without any loss in quality.