How to anti-alias a jaggy bitmap?

[Klaus Nordby]

Does anybody know of a good, simple plugin or filter or whatnot technique which will anti-alias a jaggy bitmap? Isn't it outrageous that such a plugin isn't built into Photoshop??? Or this there an obvious way doing this, just unknow to me? Merely rescaling will only soften edges to make them fuzzy - it doesn't do what anti-aliasing does. For years, I used an excellent little standalone app called "Jag" to do this (especially back when bitmap exports from CorelDraw were jaggy as hell!), but this old app will not run on W2K.


Thanks,

K

[Klaus Nordby]

Does anybody know of a good, simple plugin or filter or whatnot technique which will anti-alias a jaggy bitmap? Isn't it outrageous that such a plugin isn't built into Photoshop??? Or this there an obvious way doing this, just unknow to me? Merely rescaling will only soften edges to make them fuzzy - it doesn't do what anti-aliasing does. For years, I used an excellent little standalone app called "Jag" to do this (especially back when bitmap exports from CorelDraw were jaggy as hell!), but this old app will not run on W2K.


Thanks,

K

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Hey Klaus...

Can you post the bmp, or a piece of it so i can have a look at exactly what we're dealing with?

I really think though that if your bmp is so jaggy you need a separate 'specialized' app to repair it that you might just have a time of it repairing it even with Photoshop.

But this may of course also depend on just how badly the bmp is messed up.

I wouldn't hold your breath though [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Klaus Nordby]

It's a jaggy US flag - standard issue jaggies.

So even you, Mark, don't know of a anti-alisasing solution in the 3rd millennium? I think I'll install my old, beloved Jag on my W95 laptop and crank away.

Thanks,

K

[Wolfgang]

Klaus,

can you provide a link to that "Jag" App ??
I am using W2K too, but I still have an old PII with Windows 98 on it.

I never heard of this App, and I'd like to try it myself .

Thanks
Wolfgang

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Hey ya Klaus... i've never heard of this app either... how old IS it & who made it??

Please & thank you! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

PS: actually Klaus i DO have a few solutions for this type of problem... but they're somewhat specific to their own degrees... that's why i asked to SEE the image you're trying to fix. Could save me some typing, y'know? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Klaus Nordby]

OK, Mark - I'll dig up some Jag info (it's from 1994!) and post the images. Thanks!


K

[Klaus Nordby]

Guys, the Jag app's readme file says:
-----------
JAG Version 1.0
Copyright (c) 1990-1992 Ray Dream, Inc.
-----------
That's really all the info I have - I bet it's defunct now (does that make it legal to distribute copies to friends?). It was a great tool! I've yet to run it on my W95b laptop, but I know it works on that platform.

And here's the flag bitmap, which I know Jag will fix up pretty well. (It was made by the flag screensaver, which I've posted about elsewhere. http://www.improbable.ukgateway.net/flag3d/flag3d12.zip)


K

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Excellent job there Klaus on creating that "simulated" jaggies effect! I couldn't have done it better myself! BRAVO!!! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]


And so there we have it...
Honestly Klaus? I'm not sure that i'd even bother losing the time it would take to "fix" this image, especially considering that no matter how gr8 that lil' jaggy-app is, or what you do to the image in Photoshop... it will never be as good as simply creating it again from scratch. I'm serious... that's not the toughest object to create... is it?

If you use XARA or Illustrator, i'd highly suggest you create your own version of an American flag.

But... just because i HAD to see for myself... i worked on the image for awhile in PS. Here's what i had after a little while of trying things. The image is so far gone though that applying the needed filters in PS would/will degrade the pics quality in other ways.

Also... the fact that this copy of the image was saved as a JPG kinda sucked. Made the quality even worse by adding compression artifacts to the image. Not good...

The version below is just shy of actually repainting the colours on with a brush. And if you have to do THAT, well... fugedaboudit... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

I have this image saved as a PSD file Klaus if you REALLY want it, i'll give it to you to have &/or play with yourself; at the current state of the image below..

[Klaus Nordby]

Duh! Of course I can EASILY recreate this whole image as vector - it will take me 10 minutes! That's not the POINT! The POINT is that I needed a NEW anti-aliasing tool to replace Jag, for some images that are NOT quickly recreated.

Also, this flag is just ONE fram in an animation - and I have no desire to redraw them all!

So an AA app/plugin, which could batch-process images, would be great to have. Hey, maybe this is an interesting challenge to the programming wizards around here? Sean, for instance, are you up to the challenge? :-)

K

[This message was edited by Klaus Nordby on October 10, 2001 at 10:14.]