# Enlarging Images in Develop Mode



## Randolph (Apr 13, 2014)

When in Develop mode it is possible to enlarge an image but I cannot find a way of making an enlargement permanent. By using a crop overlay I can isolate an area of an image but this is not the same of zooming in on an image.

Thanks for any suggestions

R


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## RikkFlohr (Apr 13, 2014)

Enlargements are done in the Export dialog to what we term a "derivative image". Lightroom doesn't touch your original. 

If you simply want to zoom in to work on an image, the [Space Bar] or clicking the Magnifying Glass on the image will work. If you don't like the zoom level it gives you, you can select alternates at the top of the Navigator panel (top left) - none of this changes the image, just the view you are using when working on it.


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## RikkFlohr (Apr 13, 2014)

Enlargements are done in the Export dialog to what we term a "derivative image".&nbsp;Lightroom doesn't touch your original.&nbsp;<br><br>If you simply want to zoom in to work on an image, the [Space Bar] or clicking the Magnifying Glass on the image will work. If you don't like the zoom level it gives you, you can select alternates at the top of the Navigator panel (top left) - none of this changes the image, just the view you are using when working on it.&nbsp;


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## Randolph (Apr 14, 2014)

thanks for the suggestion Rikk, unfortunately I must have explained myself badly as whilst your suggestion is helpful it does not solve my problem, let me try again -

say for example I have an image of a car by the side of the road but the car is only 20% of the complete image but what I want is a blow up of just the car. Now I know I can zoom in as you describe but what I do not understand is now I can keep that zoomed in image, I also know that in develop mode I can put a frame round the car and exclude the rest of the image but that doesn't really give me a large image of the car. I don't want to alter the original image that I took but just get a secondary image of the detail of the the car and I don't think the export dialog will give me exactly what what I want without a lot of trial and error.

I hope that I have made my clearer.

R


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## Jim Wilde (Apr 14, 2014)

One thing to understand is that, being non-destructive, any change you make to an image will only effect the preview that Lightroom will show you....so you get to see the effect of your change (and can export or print it like that), but the underlying original image is unchanged, and you can always reset your view of that image. So cropping out just the car, then exporting it like that, is the process you need to follow.

If, however, you want to see a preview of the cropped image alongside the original image in Lightroom, then you can do that simply by making a virtual copy of the original, then do the crop on the copy which will sit alongside the original.

The bit that we need to understand more is your comment "*but that doesn't really give me a large image of the car*"....what do you mean by that? If you start off with an image of say 5000 x 3000 pixels, but after the crop you are left with an image of 2000 x 1500 pixels, when you export with the "resize" box unchecked you end up with a jpeg of that size....if you need it bigger for printing purposes you can use that resize box to upsize and well as downsize.

Does that answer the question?


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## clee01l (Apr 14, 2014)

Randolph, Welcome to our forum.

To further amplify what Rikk and Jim have said, you probably need to understand cropping.  Most modern DSLR cameras output images with more pixels than will fit a 1920X1080 monitor.  Your camera sensor captures 5760 x 3840 pixels in an image. To display that full image on the computer, the computer downsizes and resamples the image to fit the screen.   When you zoom, you tell the program displaying the image to resize at a different sampling rate. If you want one pixel recorded by the camera to be displayed as one pixel on the monitor you want no resampling  or a 100% zoom. 

The crop tool will create a window overlay that will preserve a portion of the full image on export.  Once cropped, LR will only display the cropped portion in LR unless you re-enter the crop tool.  Now if you crop a window of 1920X1080 pixels a 100% zoom will for your 1920X1080 monitor without resampling.  On export, most of your 5760 x 3840 pixels from the camera are thrown away and the resulting derivative image is only the size of your crop.  If you want to view the resulting image on the screen,  you can crop down to the screen resolution in pixels and not experience resampling.  If you want to print, the your printer resolution determines the lower pixel limits of your crop window.


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## Randolph (Apr 15, 2014)

many thanks to you all for your helpful explanation to my question, I think I understand it now and shall have a play with a few images to see if I can achieve what I have in mind.

R


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