Best enlarging method?

[Dave McGeehan]

For example: I take a photo of an object that's 4" high but want to enlarge it porportionally to 7" high and then print it. What is the best free program to use in order to do this? I'm using a PC with Windows XP.

[Dave Richards]

What kind of an object? And what will you do with the resulting print out? Is this a pattern or something? any chance you could post an example?

[Thomas Bank]

Yes, a little unclear on what you want. Not sure if you mean that you just want to enlarge the image or if, as Dave says, you want to enlarge a plan to an exact scale.

[Dan Hintz]

For example: I take a photo of an object that's 4" high but want to enlarge it porportionally to 7" high and then print it. What is the best free program to use in order to do this? I'm using a PC with Windows XP.

If the print is to scale (i.e., 4" high), then using a graphics program to increase the size by 175% will get you what you want...

[Dave McGeehan]

Sorry if I wasn't specific enough. Whenever I have a photo of an object that I want to carve to a desired size, I figure out the ratio needed to enlarge the object in the photo to the actual size I need in order to trace it onto wood and then carve. Up until recently I'd email the inamge to a printing company 10 miles away, tell them the percentage I need it enlarged and then drive to pick it up. Usually the finished image needs paper wider than my starndard printer can handle so I use this service. In cases where the enlarged image will fit on an 8+1/2" X 11" I'd like to enlarge the image on my PC, save that actual size, then send it to my printer.

I downloaded Sketchup 8 thinking there must be a way to import the image into Sketchup, change it to the desired size and then print. For unknown reasons, everytime I opened Sketchup it would say that the "program is busy" and lockup my PC. So I removed it and figured there must be a far simpler way to do this?

[Dave Richards]

I see what you're trying to do.

You could do it with SketchUp. I frequently import images into SketchUp and adjust the size of the image. It's actually very simple.

If you want to give it another shot, let me know by PM. We'll figure out what was going on with your computer and why it was timing out.

[Dave McGeehan]

Thanks, Dave. I was able to enlarge it in Word but I have to play around with it and see how to save just the outline and line-related details without the colors, shading, or any of the background. I never used Sketchup before so I figured I give it a try but could never get it to open properly. I may try to download it again and see if I can get anywhere with it. If not, I'll take you up on your offer. Thanks for the offer.

[Dave Richards]

I'd sure use SketchUp for this before I'd use a word processor.

Good luck.

[Thomas Bank]

I'm not sure that the free version of SketchUp will do what you need. I can print to scale with the Pro version, but I think the free version only prints screen resolution. As Dan mentioned, you can scale the original image by the percentage that you need. When I used Windows, I used the Image Resizer Powertoy but then MS dropped the Powertoys after XP. I then found Brice Lambson wrote a similar program: http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/

[Dave Richards]

Thomas, you have a good memory of SketchUp 5 but the output resolution restriction on the free version of SketchUp was lifted with V6 or 7. Printing to scale in the free version of SketchUp is certainly doable. If needed it is easy to set up registration marks so printing can span multiple sheets and you could even generate Post Script files for full scale printing if needed.

With the pro version I would use LayOut for this.

[Dave McGeehan]

Here is an example of a carving I did that had to be an exact size to replace the missing carving on an antique clock. The only image available was a grainy, blurry photograph of the original clock with flowery wallpaper in the background. I figured out the ratio needed to enlarge it to the needed size and sent it to the print company. Their state-of-the-art printing equipment can duplicate that same image nearly any size without any further loss of detail which is something my little Epson is incapable of. I then trace the details on my wood and carve. Is SketchUp or any other free program capable of enlarging the image while providing me a way of eliminating anything unneeded from the original image so my home-use printer can handle it or am I asking too much of a free program?

P1010084.JPG

[Dave Richards]

This was done in SketchUp. I didn't spend much time at the trimming because I need to get to work on some real projects., It could be trimmed more closely although that part I would probably do in an image editor before importing the image to SketchUp. If you needed to you could add additional lines to clarify details and whatever. At this point the cutout can be resized as needed. If you wanted a 12 foot long carving, you could resize it to be that size. Then, as I said before, you can print the image out to scale.

Here I've resized the carving to be 12" wide. that only took seconds to do.

[Dave McGeehan]

Wow, thanks Dave. I'm going to download SketchUp again and at least learn the basics. Thanks for the examples.

[Dave Richards]

Dave, let me know if I can help. First thing will be to get it installed so it'll run on your machine. If you have trouble, send me a PM and we'll get it figured out. Then, if you want, I'll give you some pointers on doing what I did. I've done some related blog posts but evidently, if I post links to them it is considered self promotion and the links get removed by moderators. I could e-mail the links, though.

[Thomas Bank]

Thomas, you have a good memory of SketchUp 5...

As I say, I use the Pro version, so I wasn't familiar with where the free version was at with various features. I did remember that was a constraint for a long time.

I've been using it since @Last Software was demoing this new software they had at MacWorld NY 2000 and their flyer was printed on a cocktail napkin because they likened the program to those napkin sketches that architects are famous for. Hmmm... Wonder if I still have that napkin somewhere?