remove pixels?

[Jamos316]

hi there,

my first time using photoshop.

i have a photo which looks ok from afar but if you are close up you can see many squares, i believe they are called pixels. what effects shall i implement on the photo using photoshop to make the pixels smaller so it will look better when looking at up close. also there is some shadow marks that i would like to remove if thats possible & i want the background to be lightened up. basically i just want to improve the picture to look more professional.
I have attached the photo so you can see and give your suggestions on what effects to use & what would make the photo look better.

thanks for reading and in advance, thanks for replying

James

 

[ALB68]

Welcome to our forum, first of all.
Unfortunately you have a very small photo there being 600 x 744 pixels @300dpi in size. This translates to 2.147" w x 2.33" h in physical size. I used a Topaz DeNoise filter on this, then sharpened it a bit with Smart Sharpen under Photoshop CC's filter menu. (Topaz is a 3rd party filter which you don't have).

 

[Tom Mann]

@Larry - Good to see you posting again. I hope all has been well. BTW, I think you must have forgotten that one can click on the in-line image and see the actual file that was uploaded. It's much larger than 600x744 px.

@OP - As both you and Larry (ALB) said, the quality of this image is not very good, and unfortunately, we don't have the mythical software that CSI has that can clean up and sharpen any image, LOL. The attached is about the best I could do in about 10 minutes of work.

@MikeMc - I did you use Topaz Details on this one (as I suggested in another thread). I'm heading out, but I'll get back to you later on how I use it. FWIW, it was only one part of my processing of this image. I threw a lot of techniques on this.

Tom

 

[ALB68]

Yes Tom I did forget to look at the inline. Thanks for reminding me.