How to enlarge JPEG images ?

[Ebenezer]

I have many JPEG images stored in My Pictures folder. Whenever I open these images with some Windows application, these images open in small or medium size. I want to enlarge the size of these images such that the quality of these images is not affected i.e the images should not look pixelled.
Can anyone suggest me how can I enlarge the size of these JPEG images ?

thanks

[Sam.D]

Here's the Image Enlargement tip for improving JPG images.

• First enlarge it to it's double size with Image/Image Size. Make sure the Resample image option is selected and it is set to Bicubic.
  
  
• As a second step to clear the jagged pixels around the edges apply Filter/Noise/Despeckle. This makes the image softer.
  
  
• Now enlarge the image to it's double again and apply Filter/Stylize/Diffuse with the Anisotropic option. This will smoothen the edges further and it enhances the edges of the image. The reason we have to enlarge the image before applying this filter is that this filter is extremely evident at 100% and would destroy the reality of the image. At this size you can see that this filter works as if a human would go over the image with a brush and repaint it, improving the edges and getting rid of inconsistencies.
  
  
• Next reduce the image back by 50% and apply Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp mask with the options Amount 60%, Radius 2 px, Threshold 2 levels. You can experiment with these options depending on your image.

[JonathanD]

Image Zoom is one of the useful plug-in for Internet Explorer.
It is a quick and convenient tool to enlarge and view the small images.
The design of many sites includes great number of thumbnails for previewing.
It is practically impossible to see the small details at the high-resolution monitors.

To enlarge the picture you have to click right button on it and choose Image Zoom from the menu.
After that a window where you can enlarge and shrink the image or view its parameters appears.
You can also save and copy the picture for use in the future.

The formats supported are BMP, DIB, EMF, GIF, ICO, JPG, WMF

[Glenny]

You can keep the follwing settings....To keep the minimum distortion, start off with a high-resolution image, say minimum 2560x1600. And enlarge by a maximum of 15-20 %.

If you cannot perform these settings, check for fractal enlarge. Fractal enlarging doesn't generate detail, however it preserves the edges sharpness while enlarging.

I haven't seen free alternatives for this, but there are some paid photoshop plugins that are pretty good