Freeware art program?

[Jantrix]

I'm having difficulty reducing any Acme license plate image. The images are real low dpi and blur badly when reduced. Is there a freeware program I can use to sharpen up the image, increase it's dpi so I can reduce it better?

[Harry P.]

I'm having difficulty reducing any Acme license plate image. The images are real low dpi and blur badly when reduced. Is there a freeware program I can use to sharpen up the image, increase it's dpi so I can reduce it better?

You can't increase an image's DPI and make it better. You can increase the DPI, but that doesn't make the image any better. You can't create image information where there is none to begin with.

And secondly, when you reduce the size of an image, it doesn't blur... it gets better. If you enlarge an image, it blurs.

[Jantrix]

I see. Then when I copy the image to a Word document and resize it, why do I lose detail? The small print on the license plate image is unreadable.

[Harry P.]

I'm not sure why you're having a problem.

I just tried it. Made a plate at Acme, saved the image to my desktop, opened Word, clicked Insert Image or whatever it says, selected the license plate image, and sized it down. Sharp as a tack. This is just a screen shot, but the image in Word looks fine.

[Jantrix]

Sharp as a tack

But not the smaller text. That was whole issue.

[lordairgtar]

The Image Harry posted is blurry, but on his own computer it is OK. Can't judge by a screen shot.

[Fabrux]

The biggest problem in this situation is the images that the Acme maker produces. If you can find a higher resolutuon picture of the base blate you want to replicate and then add your text in GIMP or something like it (Paint.NET etc) you may have better results.

[Harry P.]

The Image Harry posted is blurry, but on his own computer it is OK. Can't judge by a screen shot.

Right. In person it's sharp.

[Jantrix]

Is Paint.net good and safe. ?

[martinfan5]

Is Paint.net good and safe. ?

I have it, never used it, but yes its safe

You can get a older version of photoshop for free as well

Gimp is another that might work , its free

Edited March 7, 2014 by martinfan5

[ScaleDale]

I've had issues like this when I used on-line images with text in tutorials I built for my photography forums. My workaround was to draw a white text box over the fuzzy text and type in a replacement with a matching font. That way the text isn't reduced in size and stays nice and sharp.

Dale