Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements 3 (and higher) offer two new interpolation methods you can use for better results when resampling images. If you rarely change settings from the default Bicubic method, you may never even notice the two new methods are there.
Bicubic Smoother should give you better results when increasing image size.
Bicubic Sharper should give better results when reducing image size. Photoshop help warns that this method may produce an over-sharpened image, and to try using standard Bicubic if this occurs.
More Graphics Software Quick Tips
I don't know about you, but I can never remember when to use bicubic sharper and when to use bicubic smoother. Here is a mnemonic I came up with to help me remember:
- Bicubic smoother is better for upsampling and it comes first in the menu. It's up above sharper.
- Bicubic sharper is better for downsampling and it comes last in the menu. It's down below smoother.
In Preferences > General, you can specify which interpolation method is used as the default when images are resized through the image size command, or when transforming layers.
