Removing pixation from enlarged image

[SAEngraver]

Hi,
I am daily confronted with this problem.
I do photoengraving on granite and porcelain... no I do not use a laser, I use another CNC technology.
I am more often than not given very bad images to work from, I manage most, but the out of focus pics, like the image herewith is more difficult, for 2 reasons i suspect.
1. It is a scan from a bad photo scanned at 300dpi and very small - passport size.
2. The engraving will finally be 200mm x 300 mm which requires an extraordinary amount of enlarging, magnifying the faults and out of focus situation in the pic.
How can I best make the enlargement pic sharp and good for my work.
I have tried sharpening and all the normal filters, but no go!
I will buy a good add on if there is one available for PSP x7
All my pics are turned to black and whites before I can bring them into my the software of my equipment for engraving.
I'd appreciated one of the Gurus on this site to provide some advice please
Many Thanx
SA Engraver

[rondo]

When I've worked on similar images as yours, I duplicate the layer first, then use the Smudge brush and Soften brush to slowly remove the pixelation. It takes some time and work. Detail- it's hard to restore something that's not there in the first place, and most sharpening tools will produce more pixel artifacts- however, the best sharpening tool I've found with the most controls is Topaz Detail- you can download a free 30 day trial and see.
You can the attempt to resize the image to a larger size, menu under the Image tab, but this will probable introduce some more image degradation.
Lastly, when you re-save the image, choose Save As command for a jpeg, check the Options and make sure the compression is set to the lowest setting to preserve whatever is left in the edited image without further loss of quality.

[Jean-Luc]

If possible, try to scan at 600 or best : 1200 DPI.
This will help for the retouching process.
Save the scan as PNG or TIFF but not as JPEG which creates artefacts (defects).

[SAEngraver]

If possible, try to scan at 600 or best : 1200 DPI.
This will help for the retouching process.
Save the scan as PNG or TIFF but not as JPEG which creates artefacts (defects).

Thank you all for the help... I thought i had tried it all - all I know as a relative greeny,
Will try the suggestions.
thank you