Sharpen Image

BobbyFowler

I've attached an image I'm looking to sharpen. I've got Photoshop CS2. I know there's a sharpen tool but it ends up looking a mess. Is there a surefire way to sharpen things? I need to blow the picture up to twice it's current size. When I do that, it looks really grainy. Can I get around this?

heggie

you cant really with great results. best way to do it would be the trace tool in illustrator, then scale it up when its a shape.

BobbyFowler

Cheers Heggie
Is there a similar tool to the trace tool, in Photoshop? (don't have illustrator)
Bobby

Citizen_Erased

Yeah that shape could easily be traced using the "Pen" tool , hold on a minute and I'll find you a suitable tutorial...
/EDIT This should just about cover all you need to know about the pen tool http://www.melissaclifton.com/tutorial-pentool.html but it's a fairly user friendly tool so you could pick it up handy enough just with a bit of tinkering about with it. If not just google Photoshop pen tutorial and the results will be endless.

{1000th post Wh00t}

heggie

nope, had a quick go in illustrator for you (its not perfect but might do?) its on an a4 sheet

edit: by trace I meant the automatic 'live trace' in illustrator. you could of course redraw it in photoshop yes.

BobbyFowler

Cheers for that lads
+ thanks for that PDF Heggie!
I'll have a look at that Tutorial (I actually used one of her other tutorials to create something I used as an Xmas Present for the sis) in the morning & get used to the Pen Tool.
Bobby

Zillah

Quick attempt:

Citizen_Erased

Well if everyone is having a go , why not (paths still included)...

http://www.psdnow.com/download/file/QwsgHDcJbB/

BobbyFowler

I'm going to give that Pen Tutorial a go now. Out of interest, how long does it take to fix something like this up. It comes up a lot that people supply logos that don't look great when blown up. If it's a 10 minute fix, that would be grand. Don't want to waste too much more time than that.

Citizen_Erased

Only a few minutes tbh , but if you are dealing with a professional company you would have got that graphic as a vector which can be infinitely enlarged without any loss in detail

BobbyFowler

Yep, normally the guys send me on decent resolution graphics. Other times I get some low quality stuff or hear that they haven't dealt with the design company in ages. Other times I'm working off a letterhead. I'll get to grips with the pen tool (ended up watching a dvd after that last post) tomorrow.