I am playing with the Adobe Photoshop CC Super Resolution feature today.

I wanted to see how effective the new Adobe Photoshop super resolution feature actually is at converting a raw file to a much higher resolution, and consequently larger image file.

I used a RAW file taken with the Canon EOS-6D, which is a 20 megapixel camera that generates a full resolution RAW file of 5472 x 3648 pixels. In the real world, I could print this image with good quality at 20 x 30 inches at 180 pixels per inch.

The first order of business was to take the original RAW file and create a super resolution file created by Photoshop. No corrections applied. The resulting super resolution image was 10944 x 7296 pixels, or roughly 79.8 megapixels. That’s a very large conversion, going from 20 megapixels to nearly 80 megapixels.

Next, I resized the original raw file in Photoshop to the same exact pixel dimensions as the super resolution image for comparison.

I then created an exact 700 x 400 pixel 1:1 crop of both resized images in the same spot of the frame for comparison to one another.

Again, none of these images have been modified with sharpening, contrast or saturation. A level playing field for all image comparisons.

The top image is the actual image, scaled down for the internet and converted to a JPG, just so you can see what I started with.

The second image is the 700 x 400 crop of the resized original image, converted to JPG for the internet with no corrections.

The third image is the 700 x 400 pixel crop of the super resolution image, converted to JPG for the internet with no corrections.

Both cropped images are displayed at 1:1 resolution on your screen and the 1:1 crop was taken from the cliff face in the center of the frame of the original photo.

 

 

As you can see, the super resolution image contains a lot more detail than the uprezzed image. Dark shadows on the cliff in the original file are just a tiny portion in the 20 megapixel picture frame.

Bottom line, Adobe Super Resolution will turn a 20 megapixel image into an 80 megapixel image with dramatically more detail. I’m totally impressed with this new feature.

Using the super resolution version of the Canon 6D image, I could safely make a good quality print at 40 x 60 inches at 180 pixels per inch.

Bottom line, you can easily make 40 x 60 inch prints with a 20 megapixel camera using this new Photoshop feature.

I do caution you that this new feature is very processor intensive. If your PC is old, it could take a while to create the new, larger file. On my desktop PC, it was quite slow taking 15 seconds to generate the super resolution image. On my Dell XPS 17/i-9 core laptop, it took just a couple of seconds. Your mileage may vary.