A Sharper Scaling is a refined image scaling tool designed to facilitate upscaling within Microsoft Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10. Licensed under the Creative Commons, it supports the bulk processing of multiple photos at once as well as a variety of common output formats such as JPEG, PNG, and TIFF. A command line tool is also included with the download to allow for faster operation by advanced users.

Main Features

• Used to zoom in on specific spots in a photo or increase the zoom in a photo without distorting or blurring the image.

• Capable of scaling a quadrant of a 50-megapixel image into a new image while still retaining the 50-megapixel resolution quality.

• Supports 4 popular source formats: PNG, TIFF, JPEG, BMP

• Only supports color images and can handle up to 8 bits/channel

• Allows an adjustable scaling factor of 50% to 400% which can be set at intervals of 50% (examples: 150%, 200%, 250%, etc.)

• Does not include support for alpha channels – the image's alpha source is disregarded, so output does not include alpha channel.

• Maximum source image size is limited only by 32-bit address space, which means it can scale large sections of detailed photos without compromising quality.

Conclusion

Overall, A Sharper Scaling is a useful tool for graphic designers, photographers, image editors, media specialists, hobbyists, and anyone else who needs a way to perform quality image scaling quickly and easily. Although the interface is minimal, it does its job well enough to be considered one of the best options in its class.