Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Artwork => Topic started by: bleargh on May 04, 2007, 05:47:02 pm

Title: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: bleargh on May 04, 2007, 05:47:02 pm
Apologies for the cross-post from my Project Announcement (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=65201.0), but I think this is relevant here...



While working on the artwork for my Gauntlet Legends cabinet, I ended up needing to blow up some really dinky artwork (588x250) to something big enough to print at 240dpi (9000x3840).  Needless to say, I also didn't want it to look like pure crap.

Ran across GREYCstoration (http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/), which is an app that specializes in image restoration.  It specializes in image restoration via denoising and interpolation, and does an awesome job.  If you're doing any sort of bitmap restoration, this is a tool you want to check out.

After running my dinky artwork through and blowing it up, I ended up with something that looked far superior to what I'd started with.  Was actually happy enough with the results that I had it sent off for printing this morning.

I know that ideally we'd love to have vectorized artwork for everything, but if you're stuck having to deal with bitmapped artwork, I'd highly recommend adding this to your arsenal of tools...
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: Witchboard on May 04, 2007, 09:55:10 pm
Cool.  Let us know how it looks when you get your printed artwork back.
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: bleargh on May 04, 2007, 11:40:41 pm
Cool.  Let us know how it looks when you get your printed artwork back.

Wife picked up the artwork on her way home from some errands, and it turned out pretty good.  Considering that I'd blown the artwork up to ~15x its original size, the results are far better than I would've achieved by any other means.  Its a bit blurry due to the lack of resolution and definition in the original bitmap, but its definitely acceptable; works well enough for me that I'm using it on the CP.

FYI... while playing with GREYCstoration to do blow-ups of other artwork, I can say without question that if you've got higher res input that you get better output.  But, uh, that just makes sense, doesn't it?  Considering what I fed into it, though, I'm highly impressed with what came out the other side; there aren't too many tools that can zoom in 15x on a crappy ass little bitmap and give you anything remotely usable on the other end, much less something that you'd be willing to stick on your CP.
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: 4Aaron GE on May 05, 2007, 12:37:49 am
Are you using the command line version or the Gimp plugin?  The command line version keeps crashing on me.
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: bleargh on May 05, 2007, 01:00:59 am
Are you using the command line version or the Gimp plugin?  The command line version keeps crashing on me.

I was using the command line version, but was using "2.5" and not the "2.5.2" thats listed on the main page right now; I'd downloaded this a while back but never got around to using it until recently.

PM me your e-mail and I'll send it to you as an attachment...
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: FrizzleFried on June 27, 2007, 07:46:54 pm
I've tried and tried to get this thing to work to no avail.  It keeps looking for something on the D: drive (CD drive) even with full paths and everything.  I've even cut and pasted the damn command directly from their website only to have it error out and stick me in a loop looking for D: drive until I break out of it.

Argh!
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: bleargh on June 27, 2007, 07:55:34 pm
I've tried and tried to get this thing to work to no avail.  It keeps looking for something on the D: drive (CD drive) even with full paths and everything.  I've even cut and pasted the damn command directly from their website only to have it error out and stick me in a loop looking for D: drive until I break out of it.

Wish I could help, but haven't tried the Windows version.  Linux version works great, though.

If you want, e-mail me the picture you're working with and let me know how you'd like it blown up and I'll run it through and then fire it back...
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: FrizzleFried on June 27, 2007, 08:03:01 pm
I just PMed asking for  your email address but you can just grab the file below.  Please increase the size by 600%.   Thank you.

You can email me the result to frizfryATgmail.com or post it anywhere else and let me know the url.  Thanks!

Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: lanman31337 on July 03, 2007, 11:16:05 am
While we're on the same lines, i have a program called Alien Skin Blowup that works with photoshop.  It blew my image up and it looked fantastic printed.
Title: Re: Great tool for blowing up bitmap artwork...
Post by: 8way on July 10, 2007, 02:36:54 am
I just PMed asking for  your email address but you can just grab the file below.  Please increase the size by 600%.   Thank you.

You can email me the result to frizfryATgmail.com or post it anywhere else and let me know the url.  Thanks!


email sent.