How to upgrade your Nikon D50 from its "old" 20" mp images to a "modern" 40 mp images for free.

donaldejose

Simply shoot in Raw and process in Nikon NX Studio and export in the upscaled file size. Here are some examples. Click the image through to flckr and see if you can criticize the larger file upscaled by Nikon software.

Pistnbroke

Can I do this with my D7200?

donaldejose

Of course, Try this with an image shot at or near base ISO so you are not enlarging obvious grain. If you have too much noise in the upscaled image try running it through Topaz Photo AI or something similar.

1. Put your Compact Flash (or SD or XQD or CF Express) memory card in a reader attached to your computer.
2. Open NX Studio, click File on upper left, box drops down, click Transfer Pictures, your memory card will be found and shown in a yellow box, click Start Transfer. The photos will be uploaded into NX Studio and shown on your screen as small previews. On the upper right corner is a choose thumbnail size slider. I move it all the way to the right so I can better see the thumbnails and select the one I want to work on.
3. Double click on your selected thumbnail and it will fill your screen. Now go to the box on the right with all the sliders and make your adjustments to the image. There are many choices.
4. I usually do these thing in this order. First, adjust the Color Temperature to your liking, usually this is a small adjustment. Second, adjust Exposure Compensation if needed which usually is not needed. Third, adjust Contrast to your liking. I usually add a bit of contrast. Fourth, play with the Highlight Protection and Shadow Protection sliders to see if they improve the image. Often shadows can be brought up a bit. You have to go back and forth between the contrast slider and the shadow protection slider to find the right balance to your taste. Fifth, scroll down to the Color Booster slider and add a bit of that adjust colors to your liking. Sixth, scroll down to Sharpness Adjustment, click the Sharpness box and add plus 2 sharpness. Now examine and evaluate your image. Make other adjustments to preference as desired. Seventh, click the File menu in the upper left again and when the box drops down go down to Export and click Export. A new dialogue box appears. Near the bottom of the box select the folder where you want to store your photos. (You probably have to go into windows pictures to create a new folder first so you can select it from the pop-up dialogue box. I create a new folder every month like this, 2024_October, so I can keep my images sorted better.) Now go to the top of the dialogue box and specify how you want the image formatted on your computer. I select JPEG since that is the most common file sharing format. (You may want to save the image as TIFF file or as a HEIF file if you want to work on it further in those formats or maybe you want to save a copy in each of the formats.) Now go to the middle of the dialogue box and you will see two numbers. It will tell you the pixels in your image as it stands now (write that down) and it will tell you the pixels NX Studio can create with the long side at 8256 pixels and the short side pixel number depending upon your crop ratio (write down those numbers so you can multiply them later and find the total number of pixels in your upscaled image). I Export the image in its normal pixels and then I click the box Change Image Size and Export the image again in the larger pixel size. [If you want an even bigger file you can change the long side number from the default 8256 to an even larger number.] [Someday I when I shoot a good Z8 file I will change 8256 pixels on the long side to 12,000 pixels on the long side and that should give me the "holy grail" of a 100 megapixel image from a FF sensor.]
5. Go to your windows picture file and you will see two files with different numbers of megabytes. The small one is your native pixel resolution file and the large one is your upscaled pixel resolution file. They are not the same mb size as your pixel count since the JPEG format compresses a file. Open each one on your computer and compare them. See if you can find any difference. See if upscaling degraded your image.

Post your results in this thread so we can all see how it went for you.

Pistnbroke

I have always believed if its not in the original file then you cannot improve it ...
You say Quote
"See if you can find any difference."
The implication of that is that you cannot (see any improvement ?)
So why do it
PS hope you can see an improvement...

donaldejose

Glad you are still here participating and adding your experience/wisdom. You are correct. I do not think this technique can add details which were not captured in the original image. Same as low quality glass enlarged cannot contain the same details high quality glass on a higher mp sensor will capture. In that sense "if it's not in the original file then you cannot improve it." [However, Topaz Photo AI may be able to use AI to add, or improve, detail. Their advertisements seem to show it able to do so.] Nikon NX Studio does add pixels so those additional pixels should allow you to print the image larger at 300dpi than you can the original image which should yield a better looking large print. I have tried to detect the added "fake" pixels on my monitor but have been unable to identify which pixels were original and which were the added "fake" pixels. Go to the threads I started on using this technique with the Nikon 1, D2x, D300 and D700. Look at the examples I posted and linked to flickr. See what you think of those examples. If you try this technique with D7200 files maybe you can see a difference on your monitor or maybe not. Maybe when you print large you can see a difference or maybe not. You would think those extra pixels would count for something, maybe making a difference between a large print having 200 dpi or a large print having 300 dpi which should look smoother, if not better in small detail. Since your computer monitor likely downsizes images to display them at about 2 mb anyway it may not be possible to notice a difference on your monitor. You just have to try it to see what you think. See if you can try it with one of your bird pictures and detect any difference in feather detail when the two images are compared side by side at the same size. Look at the original at 100% and then look at the upsized version at whatever percent yields the same size. Is the upsized image any smoother or sharper? Of course, they are going to look the same when the original is printed at 300dpi because the human eye cannot detect higher dpi than 300 so a 400dpi image is not going to look better. But when that original no longer can print at 300 dpi but the enlarged image still can print at 300 dpi you should be able to see a difference. You just have to experiment yourself. Another thing you can try is Topaz Photo AI to see if it really does add detail to feathers beyond the original file. I should add that people who have tried it (on nikonians) report they can now safely print 12 mp crop sensor images at larger sizes then they had been printing their original files. So it gave those images (and the old bodies) a "new life."

Pistnbroke

Thanks for that comprehensive reply

donaldejose

Thanks for still being here and participating. I find references to high quality photo printing being 300 pixels per inch and lower quality, but acceptable, photo printing being 150 pixels per inch. Some internet sources say there are 300 dpi in 300 ppi. They are interchangeable. It does not take more than one dot to represent each pixel. And I also find references to not printing at higher than 300 dpi because it will produce a "muddy" print and the average human eye cannot distinguish more than 300 dpi anyway. If that is true I wonder why some top of the line printers can print at 1200 or 2400 dpi? So it is confusing to me. Anyone here an expert in printing who can weigh in and help us with an opinion as to whether such upscaling would be helpful in printing?

Look at this chart from Fine Art Printing website. https://fineartprinting.la/pixels-per-inch-file-resolution-for-printing/ It corresponds with my practical experience which is that a file from a 12mp sensor should not be printed larger than 16x24 inches (which will be about 180 dpi) but a file from a 36mp D800 sensor can be printed up to 24x36 inches (which will be about 200 dpi). In this thread I am suggesting that Nikon NX studio can produce something like a 36 or 45 megapixel file from a 12 or 24 mp original. That upscaling will add more pixels per inch which should allow larger printing at 200 or 300 dpi. It should be a smoother and clearer large print even though it does not contain more detail than the original image captured. I should add that upscaling is also available in other software programs and may do a better or worse job. I will even go so far as suggesting that software using AI MAY (now or in the future) be "smart enough" to add pixels which add detail (by interpolating between existing pixels) which was not in the original image. I have not tested this use of current AI such as in Topaz Photo AI.

heartyfisher

I have topaz photo ai its nice but you really cant push it more than just a we bit.

donaldejose

I also have Topaz Photo AI and find it can clean up noise quite well and it can upscale about 2 or 3 times with no noticeable degradation. But that means putting the image into an additional program. Nikon NX Studio is much more convenient for me because I can edit near base ISO nature photos and then upscale when exporting to my hard drive; no additional step. This convenience only exists if you are satisfied with the adjustment tools in NX Studio. If you are not, it would be better to take your edited image into GigaPixel AI or Photo AI and upscale it there.