Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1380420

from 3 inches to 18 inches width, then cropped to this part.

I tried the Alienskin "Blowup" software...not inexpensive when all it does is enlarge.  This went from the original about 3 inches wide at 300dpi to an 18 inch width, then cropped to get this part of the entire image. 

This is extreme resizing up. And the web is not the best place to view..print would make a better comparison.  The original as posted is at the link.

This was an early attempt with little grain added to make it less plastic. 

Just to share...no wonder some are putting anti-copy sigs all over their postings.       TomDArt.

P.S.   The original was 3.26 mg in photoshop file.  The blow-up is 25.4 mg.   That is 7.7 times the file size.  It took about 30 to 45 sec for the blow-up to render from the plug-in.

hope you dont mind - i took your original file and did the same in photoshop in terms of crop etc. added a 500%, 0.3 radius, 0 threshold unsharp mask. For reference... personally i cant see that much difference except for maybe the sharper photoshop image but that was just an afterthought in my processing.

I don't mind at all.  Seeing how this stuff works is one reason I am here.  Yep, the one I blew up had no sharpening applied.

I am sure it there is a credible difference a large print might be the tell tale.

Looks pretty good. It would be helpful to see the 'before' image too, cropped to this section.

yeah - that would be interesting to see.  See how well resizing looks like the original file size...

Here is one, from tiff to photoshop to a resized down jpg. Uncropped.  The posted version is on my gallery.  Click " expand to regular size" in the larger one presented by first clicking the image. That will show a much larger version, within the kb constraints.     Tom.

This is a "soft" shot by design, by me and the bird among blury branches. I wanted to show the head in such a proud pose.  This should be a decent starting point for you to see.

Totally off topic here...but these chickadees are the coolest little birds!!!!
We put out some suet and sunflower seeds for them here in the winter....they just love the sunflower seeds and will often come and eat right out of your hand. They are very sociable, cheerful and very friendly little guys....nice shot Tom!

Thanks, Gradient.  We use mostly black oil sunflower seed and this year put out some homemade suet. The woodpeckers like that, too.  Yes, off topic but gives serioius minds time to ponder. I do like these little and quite cute birds.   : )       Tom.

I too have used this program and it really does what it says on the tin. PSP is the program I mainly use, so in comparison, this program does a superior job at enlarging. I've enlarged small old photos to about A4 size with great results.

I should make this clear though, PSP does not accept blowup as a plugin, I use blowup via photoshop.