Filed under: Design, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Imaging Tips
JPEG image enhancer - Today's Imaging Tip
by Jason Clarke Jul 1st 2007 at 2:00PM
If you've ever spent much time manipulating JPEG images, you know that although the JPEG image compression algorithm is very effective at spitting out relatively tiny file sizes, that effectiveness comes at a cost. JPEG is what is known as a lossy compression algorithm, which means that in order to achieve the compression rates that it does, it basically throws away image information, and attempts to fill in the blanks by "faking it". Granted, this is an over-simplification, but it gives an idea of what's going on. JPEG files can be saved with varying amounts of compression, so you can have better image quality at the expense of a larger file, or worse image quality with a much smaller file. Once you've saved a file at a high compression rate, you've basically lost the quality from the image. One of the unfortunate things about JPEG compression is that when that quality is missing, it's very obvious. Rather than blurring in a uniform fashion, the JPEG algorithm creates "artifacts", which are blocky areas, typically around parts of an image that have sharp edges or gradual gradients.
While it can't bring back the quality to a heavily compressed JPEG image, JPEG Enhancer can smooth out the artifacts and make a much nicer-looking image as a result. It's so easy to use, it's ridiculous; simply open a JPEG image that you would like to fix, set the filter slider at the bottom, and press the Process button to see the results. Once you have it set to your satisfaction, save your new image and you're done.
JPEG Enhancer recently became a free download, so what's to lose?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gardiner Westbound said 3:01PM on 7-01-2007
This might be a con job. To requesting JPEG Image Enhancer one must provide a valid e-mail address. I tried twice with zero results.
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BillyG said 3:39PM on 7-01-2007
This is the 2nd or 3rd time I saw this crap in my feeds today (after being analog over th last 5 days).
Does anybody besides me see the McAfee SiteAdvisor badge being displayed in bold RED for that friggin site!?
Do you blindly recommend stuff like I've caught Lifehacker doing a million times?
A sure fire way to loose readers...
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Dr Rumble said 5:48PM on 7-01-2007
Lose, man, lose!
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Jason Clarke said 6:29PM on 7-01-2007
While I personally consider McAfee's Site Advisor to be more trouble than it's worth, it's true that the people behind JPEG Enhancer are trying to collect email addresses.
However, there is a link right at the top of the download page that reads "Click here if you don't want to enter your personal information". Click that to download the software without giving up any personal info.
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