Resizing Photos in Gimp
Gimp Basics
How to Down-scale Photos in Gimp
There are many techniques for resizing images to achieve a particular outcome and the technique any person uses will depend on the intended use for the image, personal preference, as well as what tools they have to use.
With this video a possible solution is presented to the problem of producing excessively detailed and even noisy images after scaling down.
The technique shown here involves the mean-curvature flow enhancement in the G’MIC plugin. The examples shown here uses extreme settings to ensure the effect is visible on video, but in reality less extreme settings may well produce a better result.
G’MIC doesn’t allow for ‘fade’ edits so the only options are either to get the correct settings you want or to achieve a fade by duplicating the original and applying the effect to the top layer and then reducing the opacity of the top layer to achieve the desired outcome, though the technique outlined int this video doesn’t work too well when applying this latter method.
Several of the enhancements in G’MIC allow for a smoothing effect and this can be useful either when enlarging or shrinking images – this Pixovert Photoshop video on enlargement may have some useful tips on application of the anisotropic filter.