Fuzzy Printing With GIMP
When working in the free graphics editor GIMP, you have a handful of troubleshooting effects at your disposal if prints initially come out fuzzy. You may be able to use the free software to eliminate the fuzziness entirely, or at least minimize the problem at hand.
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Sharpness
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GIMP has a variety of Enhance Filters, two of which are especially helpful when an image is printing too blurry for your needs. Click on "Filters" and "Enhance," then either "Sharpen" or "Unsharp Mask." Sharpen is simply a weaker version of the Unsharp Mask tool, meaning you can start with Sharpen and see if you still desire a more enhancing effect. Unsharp Mask allows you to choose a radius, amount and threshold for the effect, and lets you preview the changes before you apply them.
Grain Removal
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Another relevant Filter under the Enhance subcategory is Despeckle, which removes speckle noise from an image. You can also eliminate the noise or grain of an image by clicking on "Filters," "Blur" and "Selective Gaussian Blur." This effect blurs neighboring pixels in low-contrast areas, which can make the image look less blurry.
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Color Adjustments
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Sometimes you can make a print look clearer by adjusting its color. Using the Colors tab, locate assisting tools such as Brightness-Contrast or Curves, then use either tool to increase the lightness of the image, which can eliminate some of the blurry pixelation that results in digital images.
Scale Image
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As a last resort, you can scale the image so that it prints smaller. If applying GIMP's tools has left your image still looking too blurry for your preferences, decrease the width and height of the image so an 8-by-10-inch photo, for example, becomes a 4-by-5-inch print. Just click on "Image" and "Scale Image" to perform the task.
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References
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