Renowned German photo lab WhiteWall has just introduced new ways to improve the print quality of your low-resolution photos. The most eye-catching among the three is called SuperResolution, and it uses AI-powered technology to not just upscale but significantly better the quality of your photos, thus enabling you to print them in larger sizes. In a very thoughtful gesture to its customers, these new services are available free of charge
I need to preface this piece with my thoughts on the name used for one of these services, called SuperResolution. It’s especially odd that WhiteWall has used the same nomenclature as Adobe for what appears to be the same functionality—upscaling images using AI. We’re big fans of WhiteWall and the work they do, especially their photobooks, but this choice of name is puzzling at first glance. I can only imagine this new service is for amateur photographers and folks who don’t have the first clue about resizing images, but the term is definitely conflicting for those among us who are familiar with Adobe’s recent technological developments in the post-processing industry.
What Is WhiteWall SuperResolution?
According to WhiteWall, their new SuperResolution tool (available free of charge to customers) is a solution for upscaling low-resolution photos so that you can print them at much larger sizes than you ordinarily could.
“Many photos – especially those cropped or taken with smartphones or older digital cameras usually have too low a resolution for high-quality prints in large formats. The innovative WhiteWall SuperResolution technology utilizes state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly improve image resolution – without compromising quality.”
– WhiteWall Press Release about SuperResolution
In a nutshell, this service takes your (often older smartphone) very low-resolution photos that would ordinarily even struggle to look good in a 5×7 print size and upscale them to a much larger resolution. This enables you to print these photos much bigger, making them stand out in your home. Whether it’s an interesting older low-resolution file you discovered in your archives or a photo you heavily cropped out but still want to print large, SuperResolution can take care of it for you.
It uses AI technology to fill in missing details while upscaling and also paying attention to overall sharpness. According to WhiteWall, the technology they utilize is able to upscale your up to 6x the original resolution. SuperResolution is directly integrated into the file format selection and takes into account the increased resolution of your image when you upload your file. This allows you to instantly see the available print sizes as well as the expected print quality for your upscaled photos. WhiteWall claims details like hair, eyes, and fine structures are brought out, and quality limitations caused by traditional scaling methods are eliminated. I’m curious to see how this will turn out as compared to images I’ve upscaled earlier in my career. The one seen in the photo below is a massive print of a photo taken with my iPhone X. It was upscaled using Topaz Labs’ Gigapixel AI software. Back then Adobe’s native upscaling tool wasn’t able to do a great job but I’m guessing it can easily manage such resizing nowadays.
UltraHD
Another solution meant to give you exceptional quality over your prints is the WhiteWall ultraHD tool. It helps optimize high-resolution photos for the best possible prints you’ve seen from them. Sharpness is precisely adapted to the
selected format, the print material, and the printing process, resulting in Fine Art Prints with detailed clarity. This option is available across their product suite except for photo books and calendars. You can combine ultraHD with images upscaled using SuperResolution for even more brilliant and precise reproduction.
WhiteWall Image Optimization
Image Optimization by WhiteWall is an automated set of adjustments that improve brightness, contrast, and saturation on your uploaded image. Think of it as the chap sitting at the lab, tweaking your image to make it perfectly suited for the photo lab printer. This tool also adjusts exposure, corrects color casts, and adds detail to the shadow areas. You can keep monitoring your edits via the live view option there. It’s best used on images you haven’t already prepped for printing.
It’s clear that WhiteWall is looking out for its customers, especially those who aren’t that well-versed in prepping images for prints. By adding three new tools to make our lives easier and enabling us to get even better quality prints from them, all at no extra charge, WhiteWall has just raised its game to another level.
Images seen in this article are screenshots from WhiteWall’s website.
