Pixel repetition, bilinear interpolation, and bicubic interpolation are standard methods of enlarging digital images with a minimum loss of quality and sharpness. To reduce that minimum loss even further and to help professional editors in terms of quality when performing other geometric transformations, A Sharper Scaling offers a new algorithm capable of producing high-quality image enlargements (up to 400%) that surpasses the traditional methods both in resolution and in crispness.
This is a 100% free tool with the stress put in quality rather than – as admitted by the developer himself – processing speed, 64-bit compatibility, or multi-platform compliance. The aim of A Sharper Scaling is to produce the highest quality possible scaled images regardless of the cost in time or resources.
The program’s GUI couldn’t be simpler and easier to use. All you need to do is select any color image in JPEG, BMP, TIFF, or PNG format and open it from the program’s interface. You can paste it onto its canvas directly from the clipboard or browse for it using the built-in explorer. The app will display the image selected and will offer you up to four scaling options based on the target size and the scaling rate, which you can customize until they fit your preferences.
The resulting image will be placed side by side with a replica of the selected area, to which you can apply any of the four “conventional methods” that professional editing tools use, so that you can appreciate the difference in quality. This difference is not always clearly evident (especially between ASS’s algorithm and a bicubic interpolation+sharpen), becoming even subtler when the resolution and the overall quality of the source image are in the high values. Be it as it may, the results offered by A Sharper Scaling always represent an improvement – slight as it may be – over its “more traditional” competing algorithms. A Sharper Scaling can also work with batches of digital images if it needs to. Just select the folder with your images, the output size, the output folder, and an output format among “as source”, JPEG, TIFF, and PNG.
You can also use A Sharper Scaling as a support tool for other geometric transformations performed using your favorite image editor. Thus, you may use this app to upscale an image before rotating it or correcting a perspective or lens distortion, perform the desired transformation on the enlarged version, and downscale it afterwards by the same factor. Subject to the quality of the source images, A Sharper Scaling can contribute to reducing the quality loss inherent to all image geometric transformations. Despite its limited scope, this free one-function utility is an excellent add-on to anyone’s collection of image enhancing and editing tools.
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