Low-Resolution Holiday Photos

When low resolution reaches a holiday photo, the result is blocky pixels, mushy skin and faces the size of a fingernail that fall apart when enlarged. The cause is nearly always a tiny contact print, a wallet photo, a heavy crop or a scan made at 72 dpi years ago, and holiday photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the low-resolution holiday photo as a repair job: it removes the low resolution and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the decorations, the wrapping paper and the tree lights as photographed. Faces of the family around the tree, the table or the menorah that were lost to the low resolution are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

For low-resolution holiday photos the order is low resolution first, faces second, upscale last, each step taking the previous result. Standard suits a holiday photo for a screen; Pro or Max gives a low-resolution print more detail for reprinting.