Upscale and Enhance Photos with AI Super Resolution

If you have ever tried to increase the size of your photo, you know that one of the biggest challenges with this is that the quality of the photo decreases and becomes unsharp and blurry.

This has to do with the resolution of an image. Since image resolution refers to the number of pixels within an image, this number is fixed. The number of pixels does not increase when you enlarge an image as there is no new image information added, thus decreasing the image quality. 

If you wanted to increase the size of your photo without highlighting the poor photo quality, the only solution was to take a brand new photograph at a higher resolution. 

But what if I told you that with PhotoPad you could now enlarge an image and increase its resolution at the same time?

Yes, you heard that right. Those scenes you see in police television dramas where detectives zoom into an image and it magically improves the quality and details start appearing is now a reality thanks to PhotoPad Photo Editor.
 
PhotoPad has released a new feature called “Super Resolution”, an AI and machine-learning tool that makes it possible to enhance and upscale images without losing quality. 

How does Super Resolution work? 

Using cutting-edge technology, Photopad’s Super Resolution is a fully automated process that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to recognize patterns and recreate contents of an image including edges, patterns, and textures. 

The Super Resolution algorithm has been trained on large data sets of images so that it understands how physical objects such as land, buildings, people, etc. look and what their typical features are. 

So when Super Resolution is used to enlarge an image, it scans the image, recognizes these general features, and then adds the extra pixels to create a high-quality resized photo, all in a couple of seconds.  

How to use Super Resolution in PhotoPad? 

1. The first step if you haven't already, is to download and install PhotoPad Photo Editor.

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2. Click on the Open icon to upload your low-resolution image that needs to be enlarged. For best results, ensure your image is in JPG or PNG format.

3. Navigate to the Effects section in the main toolbar, click on More Effects. In the drop-down below, select Super Resolution.

3. In the Effects and Layers section on the right, type in the Width and Height measurements to the desired size and click Apply. 

Congrats you have successfully harnessed the power of machine learning to create your enlarged high-resolution image! Whether you need to create HDR images, edit travel photos, or blend images together, photo editing has never been easier. Download PhotoPad and create your first Super Resolution image today. 

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How to Make A Time-lapse Video with VideoPad

How to Make a Time-Lapse Video with VideoPad

Time just doesn’t seem to move fast enough for some of us anymore. A time-lapse video is a great way to observe change over time without having to literally watch grass grow. You can make a time-lapse video of anything you would like, such as a sunset, a cross-country drive, a plant growing, or anything else that you can imagine. With a simple and easy-to-use video editing software such as VideoPad, you can make stunning time-lapse videos of your own and share them with the world.

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What is a Time-lapse Video?

There are basically two types of videos that are considered time-lapse videos. The first type is made when a video is taken on a camcorder and then later that video is sped up to quickly show the passing of a long amount of time. This can make everything in the video appear to move quickly or just certain objects in the video, depending on where the activity was in your shot and if your camera was still while shooting. Think about a sped-up video of foot traffic in a train station or of snow building up during a winter storm. The second type of time-lapse video is made by taking a series of pictures of the same object over time and then playing them all together in rapid succession. This method creates a video-like effect of that object changing from picture to picture.

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Setting Up Your Camera for a Time-lapse 

Ready...

Make sure that your camera is fully charged and make sure that you have enough storage for the number of pictures you will be taking or the amount of time you will be filming. Make sure that your SD card is formatted and cleared so that there are no issues saving your images or recordings. When a camera is left on or left recording for long amounts of time, it can quickly drain the battery. Make sure that your battery is fully charged and that you have a spare ready just in case.

Aim...

The most common element of almost all time-lapse videos is that the shot typically remains stationary, while one particular object or area within that shot moves. Using a tripod is the easiest way to achieve maximum camera stability. If you do not have one available, find a sturdy and secure place to set your camera so that it can remain completely still and untouched. Look through your viewfinder or on your camera’s playback screen and set markers just outside of the shot so that you can line that exact shot up again later if you do move your camera.

Fire!!!

If you are taking a video, all you have to do is start your recording and remember to come back to stop it when you are finished. Making a time-lapse video with photos can be a little more labor-intensive. Depending on how fast your subject is moving or changing, you will want to use different intervals of time for taking pictures. Some modern cameras do have settings on them that enable you to set predefined increments of time to take a photo. Otherwise, you can set a timer and hang out with your camera. A couple of photos each minute is good for a sunrise, but for something like a plant growing, a couple of photos a day is better.

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Photos or Video?

The main factor for this decision is time. How long is it going to take to capture everything you want in your time-lapse? Anything that takes longer than a day to capture would probably be better left to pictures. This is mainly because of storage. Video files are large, photo files are not. A 24 hour HD video won't even fit on most computers and would likely require 2-3 battery changes to film it all. Making a time-lapse with photos is great for capturing gradual change over time and then getting to watch it all at once in a matter of seconds. Using video is good when change happens quickly and you want to capture every second of it.

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Making a Time-Lapse with Photos

Set up your camera on a tripod with your memory card formatted and your battery fully charged. Begin taking your pictures in even increments of time or allowing your camera to do so for you if it has the capability. Once you begin taking your pictures, do not move or disrupt your camera. When you get back to the lab, open the latest version of VideoPad Video Editing Software. There are two ways to make a time-lapse with photos in VideoPad.

Method #1

Add Images as Video in VideoPad 

You can create a great time-lapse video with pictures using VideoPad's Add Images as Video function. From the File drop-down menu, select Add Images as Video... You will be prompted to select the folder on your computer containing all of your photos. After that, you can set the frame rate. This is a fast and efficient way to make a time-lapse video from your photos. The lowest frame rate that can be set is 10 fps, though. If this is too fast for your photo time-lapse, you will have to make your video using the second method.

Images as a Video Output File

Method #2

Drag all of your photos into the media bin in VideoPad. Then drag them all onto your timeline in the order that they were taken. To adjust the duration of all of your images at once, click on the first clip in the timeline, hold down the shift key, and then click on the last clip in your timeline. This will select all of your images at once. Right-click on any one of the selected images in your timeline and then select Change Duration from the dropdown menu. You will see under the clip preview window that the default duration of 3:00 sec is now highlighted in blue and can be adjusted. You can experiment with what feels right for your time-lapse. Typically, for a time-lapse made of images, the duration of each image doesn't need to be more than 1/2 a second long. Anything longer and your video will look choppy and slow.

Change Duration of Multiple Images at once in VideoPad 

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Making a Time-lapse with Video

Set up your camera on a tripod with your memory card formatted and your battery fully charged. Start your video recording. Once you start your recording, do not move or disrupt your camcorder or anything in your shot until you are finished. When you get back to the lab, open the latest version of VideoPad Video Editing Software. Drag your video clip into the media bin in VideoPad and then drag it onto the timeline. Right-click on your clip and select the option that says Change Clip Speed.

Change Clip Speed of a Video

That will open up the Speed Change function and allow you to adjust the speed of your clip as a percentage. It is default at 100% which is normal speed, so you can increase it from there. Remember that 200% is making your clip twice as fast, 400% is quadrupling the speed, and so on and so forth. You can adjust it to your liking and try out different speeds until it looks perfect. Click Set when you are finished and your time-lapse video is now ready for export. You can add music or captions to your time-lapse video and then export it to your preferred location or upload it directly to YouTube.

Increasing Clip Speed 4x

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Combine Black and White With Color In PhotoPad

How to Make A Photo With Color and Black and White

You have probably seen one of these dramatic-looking images and wondered how it was created. It is a clever and imaginative way to draw attention to a particular color or section of an image and give it that artistic look and feel. The coolest part about these stylish images is that you don't have to be a photo editing expert to make one of your own. The process of making a photo that combines black and white with color can be broken down into three easy steps:

1. Select the area you want to color 
2. Invert the selection 
3. Apply the Grayscale filter 

After reading this tutorial, you too will be able to create an attractive image of your own using the latest version of PhotoPad photo editing software.

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Making A Selection

The first step will be to select the part of your image that you wish to keep in color. PhotoPad features 6 different tools for making selections and they each have their own benefits. 

PhotoPad has six different selection tools

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Select a region along its outline 

Selecting With The Magnet Tool

The Magnet tool is the tool that is best suited for this project. The Magnet tool works by finding the edges on the object you are selecting. The tool looks for the abrupt color change that is typical of the edge of an object against a background and then uses those detected edges to make an incredibly precise selection.

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Select a region with similar colors 

Selecting With The Wand Tool

The Wand tool is another perfectly acceptable option. The wand tool uses color detection to make a selection. You can adjust the sensitivity of the tool so that it selects more or fewer colors on the spectrum of colors you are trying to select. Hold down the shift key while making your selection to add more to it. The Wand tool works best when the background is a different color than the object you are selecting and when the object you are selecting doesn't consist of too many different color tones.

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Inverting A Selection

I used the Magnet select tool to select the petals around this flower. You want to make sure you zoom in close to ensure that you are making your selection as precise as possible.

Once the object is selected, it is time to make everything else black and white. Since we want everything except our selected object to change, we are going to invert our selection.

With your object still selected, right-click on the selection and choose the option on the drop-down menu that says "Invert Selection." You will notice that now, instead of our flower being selected, everything EXCEPT the flower is selected. That is just what we want.

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Using The Grayscale Filter

With our background selected, we are going to visit the Filters tab, which is located at the top of the PhotoPad application. Click on the Filters tab and then look for the Grayscale filter on the far left. Grayscale means that only shades of gray will be used to color your image. It is more commonly referred to as "black & white." Now, click on the Grayscale filter option.

Because we have something selected, this will launch a prompt asking if we want to apply the Grayscale effect to the entire image or just to the selected region. Because we now have just the background selected, we will choose to apply the effect to the Selected Region.

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The Finished Product

As you can see in this image, the Grayscale Filter effect has been applied to the background while leaving the balloons and their bright colors untouched. The finished product is a beautiful image that jumps right out at you.

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