Our quality standards for visual media and how we consume it have drastically changed in the last two decades. We have gone from grainy digital photos to ultra-high-definition images and videos that are almost lifelike. Additionally, we now have robust tools to enhance image quality quickly and effectively.
Such technological development feels genuinely remarkable when we realize the complexity behind enhancing an image’s quality. However, websites and online platforms still struggle to find a way to improve image quality robustly. Thankfully, finding the right API that can be a website’s image quality enhancer has become possible.
This article will explain image enhancement, some popular use cases of image enhancement, and how an image enhancement API can simplify your image processing needs.
Table of Contents
What Does It Mean to Enhance an Image’s Quality?
An image is a collection of data about the pixels that make it up. Each pixel has a particular color, and a specific combination of colored pixels comes together to create a picture. An image’s quality means talking about how many pixels it is composed of. More pixels mean the picture contains more details and is clearer and sharper.
When we wish to enhance an image’s quality, we wish to add more pixels (and hence more data) into the picture to make it sharper. Traditionally, there were hardly any effective ways to improve an image’s quality. However, researchers devised algorithms that took existing pixel data and interpolated them to the pixels around them.
However, these standard image enhancement algorithms end up causing a loss of detail if the interpolation is incorrect or the image is too complex. Recently, researchers have developed algorithms that use artificial intelligence to enhance image quality and minimize the loss of detail. Such cutting-edge algorithms have revolutionized image enhancement and are becoming more commonplace now.
Why Do Users Want to Enhance Their Image Quality?
Users can want to enhance their images for a variety of use cases. The application of image enhancement varies based on the nature of the user too. Individual users may want enhanced images on their social media for better viewing. Companies may want to improve the image quality of their product photos so that their billboards look appealing.
Certain kinds of scientific researchers utilize image enhancement tools daily. For example, cosmologists and astronomers use advanced image optimization and processing to understand the universe better. Biologists use image enhancement on the pictures they take through powerful microscopes to better understand the underlying natural systems.
Filmmakers and film restoration teams extensively rely on image enhancement tools for almost all of their projects. With such varied uses, people are constantly looking for top-notch image enhancement mechanisms. However, they expect the tools will be intuitive and easy to use too, like in the form of an API. After all, APIs make automation much easier, as described in this blog.
How Can a Smart Image Enhancement API Make It Easy to Enhance Image Quality?
With a smart image enhancement API, you can quickly improve the quality of the images you work with. Additionally, it will take care of a lot of the complexity associated with image enhancement. After all, modern tools use advanced computer vision techniques to sharpen an image significantly.
Some of the advantages you get to experience when using an intelligently-designed image enhancement API are explained below:
- Simpler implementation: With an API taking care of your image enhancement needs, your codebase becomes much less complicated and cleaner. The code doesn’t need to contain functions performing complex image processing. Additionally, you don’t need to worry about saving enhanced images on a server and can get images with improved quality in real-time through the API.
- No compromise in performance: A smart image enhancement API would have cutting-edge algorithms working on the backend, enhancing the image to the top quality.
- Enhanced images for clearer printing: With a smart image enhancement API, you can improve your pictures and get the new enhanced quality image safely printed without worrying about the loss of detail.
- Helps ensure quality delivery: An intelligent image enhancement API will provide you with all the information you need to create a quality application. It will give proper error codes and information about request limits so you know when the application can deliver enhanced images. This can save you from dissatisfied customers and help with conversion rates.
- Secure image enhancement: The right image enhancement API will have a robust security system to protect from any request interception and data leaking. Preferably, it should have an authentication system to ensure the identity of the source of requests. Additionally, it shouldn’t allow requests over an unsafe connection, as discussed in this blog.
With such advantages, using an API as your primary image quality enhancer becomes a no-brainer. However, you need to choose the right image enhancement API to ensure you only get top-quality services.
What Pitfalls Should the Ideal Smart Image Enhancement API Avoid?
A smart image enhancement API is named as such because its design is well-thought and guarantees dependable performance. However, there are several image enhancement APIs available on the market. Each option comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, you need to know what the API should not be doing to make a better choice.
A smartly-designed image enhancement API would avoid the following pitfalls to ensure a top-notch user experience:
- Provide too much technical information: One mistake API developers often commit is that they either ask for too much in requests or return responses with too many details. The ideal image enhancement API should overwhelm its users with too much information. Rather, it should provide straightforward details about the enhanced image.
- Use inefficient algorithms for enhancement: Image enhancement can become a time-taking procedure if executed inefficiently. The process involves a lot of image optimization, and working with visual data is hardly easy. Therefore, the ideal image enhancement API must ensure that it uses only the most efficient algorithms to improve image quality.
- Offer limited enhancement abilities: The ideal image enhancement API needs to provide improvement to the topmost quality. It limits itself and its users if it only improves 720p to 1080p. Therefore, it needs to enhance the image significantly, and the user can choose the extent themselves.
- Have poorly designed interface: Error and return codes are crucial information that helps developers design their applications better. The ideal image enhancement API needs to provide helpful and easily understandable codes so that the application can handle situations like the request limits exceeding.
- Have inadequate documentation: Even the most experienced developers need a point of reference for their tools. Therefore, the ideal image enhancement API must provide thorough documentation that covers each detail of its functioning.
By being on the lookout for such shortcomings, you can ensure that your API is dependable and top-quality. By making the right choice, you can ensure that your images are enhanced responsibly.
How Can the Smart Image Enhancement API From APILayer Be the Right API for You?
The smart image enhancement API from APILayer fulfills all that you expect from a robust image quality enhancer tool. It can enhance images to up to 4k resolution and uses industry-leading computer vision algorithms on the back. Additionally, it provides a straightforward interface to ensure a seamless development experience and an authentication system based on API keys (which are further explained in this blog).