Technology moves fast, and photography is no exception. The race to more pixels means that there are exceptional photographs taken relatively recently that simply are too low-resolution to make large prints of, for example. For when you absolutely need an image with a higher resolution, the mad geniuses at Adobe have developed just the thing—Super Resolution.
Adobe’s new feature, now shipping in its Camera Raw 13.2, and coming soon to Lightroom and Lightroom Classic, applies artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to your photographs, analyzing and comparing millions of images to create older and cropped pictures into sharper photos at bigger sizes. Serving as a sequel to the tech firm’s Enhanced Details, Super Resolution allows users to “blow up” images while maintaining crisp borders and finer details.
Super Resolution doubles the linear resolution of an image, resulting in four times the pixel count to the new Digital Negative (DNG) when applied. The feature is currently limited to final DNGs of 500 megapixels, which is a REALLY BIG file, but not enough for the folks at Adobe, that promise they’re working on increasing the limits.
“Enhance Details was the first Enhance feature. Super Resolution is the second. We’re now looking into ways to extend Super Resolution to produce even larger and cleaner results,” said Eric Chan, senior principal scientist on Adobe Camera Raw, in the announcement. “We’ll also be exploring other potential applications of the same underlying technology, such as improved sharpening or noise reduction. Anything we can do to make images look better is fair game!”
