History Main / EnhanceButton

* ''ComicBook/TheNewUniverse'': The short-lived comic ''Spitfire and the Troubleshooters'' has an exceptionally implausible example, where a character uses a special helmet that visualizes computer data, and ends up "enhancing" an image of a villain's face -- generated from a ''written'' report.

* Subverted in ''Series/DueSouth'', where the detectives are trying to identify a suspect in the crowd of a hockey game from the TV broadcast. They try zooming in on his face, only for it to be equally blocky. But they can still work out his ''seat number'', as they suspect he's a season ticket holder. Then they show the footage to an elderly deaf lady, who gives her best guess at lip-reading what he might be shouting.

* Parodied in a ''Manga/HoneyAndClover'' episode, in which one of the characters pauses, rewinds, enlarges, and enhances the face behind the waterfall ''of one of his own memories.'' It works, naturally, although it helps that he was obsessed with the character in question.

* In ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis Tokyo 2040'' episode 7, a worker in an undersea base discovers that his wife is cheating on him when he enhances a video message from her and sees a naked man sitting on her bed reflected in the bezel of her watch.

* Every so often in ''Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka'', somebody wants to un-mosaic an image, either to identify a person in it or just to ogle their concealed body parts. While impossible in real life, this always works in the setting. There's a bit of blink-and-you'll-miss-it justification at one point, implying that the mosaic functions in all commercial and most freeware graphics packages were written by a grand conspiracy of perverts, who devised ways to embed the original image data in the end result -- making mosaics reversible.
%% * In one of the live-action segments of ''Anime/OtakuNoVideo'', an interviewee claims to have invented a pair of goggles that could do the same thing as the above on the fly, while he's watching a censored video.

* ''ComicBook/TheNewUniverse'': The short-lived comic ''Spitfire and the Troubleshooters'' has an exceptionally implausible example, where a character uses a special helmet that visualizes computer data, and ends up "enhancing" an image of a villain's face -- generated from a ''written'' report.

* The climax of the 1987 film ''Film/NoWayOut'' hinges partly on the excruciatingly slow "enhancement" of a tiny, blurry Polaroid picture -- continuously displayed with a ViewerFriendlyInterface so the moviegoer can see just how close it is to [[FramingTheGuiltyParty implicating]] Kevin Costner as a [[RedScare Soviet]] [[TheMole mole]]. The computer program doing the "enhancing" is explicitly stated to be guessing what's there rather than magically creating missing data, but the resulting image is still incredibly accurate.
* Parodied in Creator/MelBrooks' ''Film/HighAnxiety''. As a secondary character blows up a photograph, he pins up a series of even greater enlargements until he finally gets one roughly 20 feet across, which he examines with a magnifying glass before exclaiming, "Aha!" It's oddly more realistic than most examples, because it's from a medium-format camera, which even back then could easily take 150 megapixel photos -- the ''real'' unrealistic bit is where he can get photo paper that big.
* In ''{{Film/Next}}'', FBI agents zoom in and enhance a grainy frame of CCTV footage enough to get a VIN number from an SUV.
* In ''Film/FastFive'', Creator/DwayneJohnson's team uses this to track down Dominic Torreto. The enhancement itself doesn't actually reveal a clear photo because he's masked, but it's clear enough that they're able to match him by facial structure.

* Used to chilling effect in ''Film/TheLastBroadcast''. [[{{Mockumentary}} Ostensibly a documentary]] looking into the murder of three filmmakers years after the event, the documentary maker asks a photographic expert to enhance an blurry image of a monstrous-looking creature. The image is returned to throughout the film, each time being slightly clearer, but is only revealed at the end. [[spoiler:The image isn't just blurry; it's also stretched vertically, and it turns out to be a picture of the documentary maker himself, who is implied to be the original killer.]]

* In ''Film/ThePinkPanther2006'', investigators zoom in on the picture of Clouseau's airport accident, revealing [[spoiler:the Pink Panther diamond on the bag scanner's screen.]] Interestingly, you could see it without enhancing, making the Button unnecessary.
* The 1948 film ''Film/CallNorthside777'' provides an early example; a reporter proves that a witness lied in a trial eleven years earlier by blowing up an old photo of the witness with the accused. He can thus read the date on a newspaper in the background, revealing that the witness saw the suspect a day before she claimed to.
* In the ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' movie, technicians use several presses of the Enhance Button to discern glyphs on the other side's Stargate.
* In ''Film/{{Disturbia}}'', the protagonist apparently has a good enough video camera that he can enhance a split-second image seen through a hole in a grate, in a dark house, into a high resolution image.
* In ''Film/{{Species}}'', they get a blurry still from a video camera and manage to enhance the image in the lab, if only slightly.
* Played with in ''Film/DejaVu2006''. A secret government agency is using satellite data to reconstruct every aspect of an area in 3D, allowing them to zoom in at ground level, go inside structures, and even recreate audio. The protagonist is extremely skeptical, before it's revealed that [[spoiler:they're folding space-time to view past events in real time]].
* In the ''Film/CharliesAngels2000'' movie, they enhance the image of a normal CCTV tape taken in a normal parking garage at night, and spot their target through the reflection in the door of a nearby car.
* In ''Film/BringingDownTheHouse'', the protagonist joins a dating service, but his date isn't the person shown in her profile picture. She shows that she is indeed in the picture -- in the background, in handcuffs, visible only with an Enhance Button.
* Mocked in ''Film/SuperTroopers'', in a scene where Ramathorn, sitting at a computer, is tasked with printing off a photo of a suspect. He at first trolls his superior by repeatedly saying "Enhance!" between random keystrokes, before his exasperated superior yells at him to "just print the damn thing!"

* In ''Film/Underworld2003'', the protagonist has a picture of someone whose face is only four pixels large. But at the press of a button, it becomes a clear image of her love interest.
* In ''Film/{{Taken}}'', Brian Mills gets a lead on his daughter's kidnapping by enhancing a photo found on her camera phone card, in which the spotter is a faint reflection on a nearby phone booth. Crazily, he does the enhancing at a subway station photo kiosk, although the original photo may have been higher-resolution than the kiosk shows.
* Largely averted in ''Film/USMarshals''; zoomed-in CCTV footage is visibly pixelated, and the focus is fuzzy, if not quite as bad as it should be. Nonetheless, it provides Gerard and his team useful clues about the homicide their fugitive committed.
* ''Film/TheFugitive'' provides an audio example; the background noises on a wiretap recording are enhanced until the team can clear make out the name of a train station being broadcast over a distant PA system.
* This forms the plot of ''Film/{{Blowup}}''; a photographer tries to investigate a murder he believes he caught on camera, but loses resolution as he tries to enhance his picture.
%%* Similar to Antonioni, this is also the basis of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola's ''Film/TheConversation'', but focusing on sound and surveillance.
* In ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'', The Duras sisters are able to enhance the feed from Geordi's VISOR to ridiculous extents, being able to see the Enterprise's shield frequency. Then again, the VISOR is a futuristic EverythingSensor, so it may just be that high resolution; Geordi simply doesn't use it at that setting because it's rarely needed.
* In ''Film/{{Evidence}}'', criminal investigators looking through dark, partially-corrupted footage are able to "enhance" it enough to get clear images out of pixel soup.
* ''Film/{{Sneakers}}''.
** While the team is watching a videotape of Gunter Janek's office, they zoom in on an answering machine and its image becomes clear.
** While the team is watching a video of a man getting into a car:
--->'''Bishop:''' Can we get plates?\\
'''Mother:''' Let me see. Zooming in. Another bump. Enhancing. There's your plate. 180 IQ.
* In ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', the BigBad needs an Enhance Button to be able to positively identify Jake when he's trying to stop the bulldozers.
* In ''Film/BladeTrinity'', the Nightstalkers get one piece of Drake's armored skin. Their computer is able to "extrapolate" the rest of Drake's body from that one spike.

* Averted in ''Film/TheDeparted'': After a long, tense scene in which [[TheMole Colin Sullivan]] is pursued through the streets by [[TheMole Billy Costigan]] without their ever clearly seeing each other, he finds Costigan on security camera footage. There is no enhance button, and zooming in reveals nothing.
* In ''Film/EagleEye'', agents Morgan and Grant try to get a clear image of the suspect from CCTV footage of a moving bus. Morgan asks the tech to enhance a completely dark section, revealing a reflection with the face of a different suspect.
* Used near the climax of ''Film/TheTrumanShow'': [[spoiler:Christof gets suspicious at Truman taking an impromptu nap in the basement and, reviewing the footage after he's supposedly gone to sleep, focuses on a blurry motion which, after enhancement, reveals the hand of Truman crawling away]].
* In the American version of ''Film/TheRing'', video producer Noah employs a more realistic version when breaking down the Cursed Video frame by frame. He notices that one frame has a jittery video bleeding from the side of the frame, meaning that there's something outside the frame, in the overscan. His professional equipment allows him to read the overscan, which shows the Moesko Island Lighthouse. Rachel has to use the high-end processors and tracking heads at her newspaper's media department to get a clearer image.

* Averted in ''Film/AccidentalHero'', when the reporters are trying to zoom in on an image of the mysterious rescuer in the background of a video recording:
-->'''Joan:''' There's no face. There's nothing really to work with. Big dots, that's all you're gonna get.
* Both adaptations of ''Literature/TheGirlWithTheDragonTattoo'' have ridiculous uses of Enhance Buttons on photos taken from a distance, 30 years ago, on ordinary cameras, by ordinary citizens completely unrelated to the case. This indeed helps them identify the murderer. The original novel was guilty of this to some extent, but was more explicit in how much guesswork and Photoshop there is in the process.
* Averted in ''Film/TheBourneIdentity'': The police are able to "sharpen" a blurry image of Jason Bourne, but it's far from perfect and they have to call in a police sketch artist to look at it. Even then, he can only provide about four or five educated guesses.
** On the other hand, it was played ridiculously straight in ''Film/JasonBourne'' even compared to other trope examples, producing a perfect image from a low-resolution security camera still. You'd think that [[Creator/PaulGreengrass Paul Greengrass]] of all people would recognize the difficulty in getting a [[JitterCam perfect camera image]]...

* Used twice in ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'':
** When the Kingsmen watch TV footage of Valentine announcing his free Sim card deal, they are able to zoom in from a wide angle shot to a crisp close-up on the scar on Valentine's assistant's neck.
** When they analyze footage taken with Harry's spy glasses at Valentine's place, they are able to zoom in on an envelope carried by one of Valentine's assistants, which clues them in on the "South Glade Mission Church".

* A non-tech version appears in ''Film/{{Lucy}}'', where the title character uses her powers to scan the memories of the BigBad to learn where the other drug mules were being sent to, using mundane glances to a reflection off ''someone's eye''.

* {{Handwave}}d in ''Literature/DirtyMartini'' by J. A. Konrath, where a tech-savvy police grunt drops some TechnoBabble to describe how they were able to filter and blow up a grainy picture until it became legible.
* ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'''s title character uses the C Cube to enhance low quality video into much higher quality one. It's {{Handwaved}} as fairy technology; a previous book suggests it works by removing impurities in the wire that transmitted the footage (which wouldn't do squat for the digital signal itself, but whatever.)
* In one of the ''Literature/TomSwift'' novels, saboteurs take out a camera under their boat. To prove it was deliberate, they use the Enhance Button on its last (blurry) image to reveal the knife that cut the cord. [[LampshadedTrope Lampshaded]] in that they discuss that the computer is pretty much just making stuff up to fill the missing data.
* PlayedForLaughs in Rick Cook's ''[[Literature/WizBiz The Wizardry Cursed]]'', when a group of high-ranking U.S. Air Force officers get a perfectly clear photo of a dragon, complete with dragon rider. Since they can't possibly believe in dragons, they decide that the photo is "out of focus", and "enhance" it until they can convince themselves that it's some new top-secret Soviet stealth airplane. By the time they break for dinner, they are arguing over the serial numbers on the tail.
* The heroine of the ''Literature/CamJansen'' series can use her "PhotographicMemory" in this way to solve minor crimes. While eidetic memory is rare in RealLife, it does kind of work like this, allowing one to see new details in old memories as if one were looking at a photograph. But this character uses it to ridiculous extremes, such as being able to read the address on a magazine carried by someone walking by.
* Subverted in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': Marco spots an Andalite on a TV show. He visits Ax, they replay the footage together, and confirm that yes, it's an Andalite. They still can't figure out who it is, so Marco suggests zooming and enhancing. Ax protests that he can't get better detail than what he has without the original video reel.
* Subverted in Scott Westerfeld's ''Literature/SoYesterday'': The protagonist asks a friend who works in computer graphics to blow up and enhance a low-quality picture from a cell phone camera. The friend explains that this is impossible, and shows what happens when you zoom in -- but also shows that ''blurring'' the photo can actually make it more comprehensible.

* Creator/MichaelConnelly's novels:
** ''Literature/TheNarrows'' subverts this trope. Our protagonist detective, who knows little of computers, asks another character to "enhance" a digital picture this way, only to be told that it's impossible.
** In ''Literature/NineDragons'', this is played realistically, with the use of a computer program to "guess" or fill in the image.
* A ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' novel, ''Assumption of Risk'', has an entire chapter dedicated to a minor character enacting this trope. Then again, the year is 3055 and holographic display technology is widely available, to say nothing of the HumongousMecha of the setting. It probably isn't too much of a stretch to expect some absurdly high-resolution camera equipment in this setting.

* In Roger Macbride Allen's ''Literature/{{Inferno|RogerMacbrideAllen}}'', a computer compiles images from multiple security cameras to create a full representation of what's going on at a party. If anyone wanders out of frame in all of the cameras, the computer extrapolates as to where they were in the room during that period (although the image is low-quality).

* [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]] in ''Literature/{{Congo}}'': The hunt to enhance a piece of footage that displays one of the [[KillerGorilla killer gorillas]] storming the first ERTS camp requires multiple specialised computer programs, some of which need to be run to counteract a degradation of the footage that the previous program unwillingly creates, and all of which need a long amount of time. Ross can work the programs faster and more efficiently than anyone. The resulting picture is still bad enough that Travis at first thinks Ross found a rookie programmer's EasterEgg. But it's still just good enough to convince Travis that Ross can be the "[[TheWormGuy console hot-dogger]]" for the second expedition.
* Done realistically in ''Literature/TheHuntForRedOctober'': While the CIA does enhance poor quality photos of the eponymous submarine, they need to map the lens of the actual camera used to take the photo (not a similar camera) and use that map to break the photograph down into as close to the original image as possible -- which still isn't perfect.
* Done realistically in ''Literature/TheMartian'': At some point a NASA engineer laments that a satellite photo's low precision is making their work difficult; they're told that the NSA ''already'' ran the photo through the enhancing software they use for SpySatellites, and this is the best they could get.
* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': "Literature/TheMerchantPrinces": Hober Mallow records the events when a Foundation missionary seeks refuge aboard Mallow's ship on the planet Korell. He later enhances an image on the Visual Record that shows an [[InvisibleWriting invisible tattoo]] on the missionary's arm. [[spoiler:The tattoo says KSP, proving that the missionary is actually a plant - a member of the [[SecretPolice Korellian Secret Police]].]]

* ''Series/LasVegas'' took the Enhance Button further than likely any other show on this list. Surveillance is built into the premise -- as noted in the pilot, Las Vegas has more surveillance cameras per capita than any other city in the world, and the characters use them to solve crimes in their casino. But nearly every episode involves them zooming in to identify individuals from at least twenty feet away and using absurdly sophisticated facial recognition software (for a casino, at least). For example:
** In "Can You See What I See?", Mike uses camera footage from two different convenience stores to create a composite image of Ed driving through a green light (and not the red one he was given a ticket for). Among other things, he straightens a diagonal image and uses the reflection on a TV to zoom in on the Stratosphere Tower more than five miles away. And he goes to obscene effort just to get his hands on the footage (even getting a job at the place that had one of the tapes). In the end, [[spoiler:Ed shows it to a judge he knows, who notices that [[ShaggyDogStory he wasn't wearing a seat belt]]]].
** In "Two of a Kind" (a crossover with ''Series/CrossingJordan''), the boys use four separate photos of a crime in progress to end up with a perfect 3D simulation of the room, revealing the face of a female culprit which wasn't anywhere in the recorded material. There's a slight HandWave that the computer "extrapolated" the new information from what they already had, but it's not shown how it did so.
** In "To Protect and Serve Manicotti", they start with CCTV footage of a guy's head shoved onto a restaurant counter by Creator/SylvesterStallone's recurring character, with his hand concealing nearly all of the man's face. They then remove the hand, fill in the missing features, do the same to the other half of the guy's face, and end up with a complete 3D rendering of the guy's head by pure guesswork.
** In "Shrink Rap", Mike holds a special filter up to an image of cards on the screen, revealing the markings in invisible dye which a cheater has been applying to them. The only problem is that the screen shouldn't be capable of displaying anything outside the human-visible spectrum of colors.
* ''Series/LieToMe'' pulls this one a lot, when Cal needs to analyze a subject's body language but can't without some magical image-enhancing technology which can zoom in to see how much their pupils are dilating. Heck, even Cal himself has [[SherlockScan eyesight with optical zoom]] that helps him see pupil dilation like an eagle, if he is right there with the subject.
* In one episode of ''Series/MacGyver1985'', this was coupled with some superficially realistic-sounding TechnoBabble: "Create a bitmap. Now increase the Z-axis while holding the X and Y axis steady." While this sounds ludicrous, it's basically the 1980's equivalent of getting a high resolution image file from a film negative and using the zoom function on your computer.

* ''Series/CobraKai'': Subverted. A kid uses a handheld camera to record a fight between Johnny and Daniel. Afterwards they are viewing the footage and Johnny asks to see it from another angle. The kid considers the stupidity of the request before pointing out that there was one camera so there is only a single angle to view.
* The Enhance Button is a staple of the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' franchise, particularly the [[Series/{{CSINY}} New York]] and [[Series/CSIMiami Miami]] versions.
** All three CSI shows used the Enhance Button to construct a recognizable image from the reflection in someone's ''eye''. It being dark and the footage being from a grainy CCTV camera just makes it worse.
** One ''CSI'' episode used the Button to obtain a recognizable image of the person behind the camera, by looking at the reflection of someone's sunglasses in the window of a car -- a ''double'' reflection.
** Another ''CSI'' episode used a 3D crime scene scanner in this manner. Such devices do exist, using a laser to create a 3D image of an area. ''CSI'''s version, though, lifted the body off the bed to look at the stains on the sheets underneath it. That's the equivalent of taking a photo of a guy, "stripping away" the skin and muscles, and looking at what ''color'' the guy's bones are.
** One ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode used the Button to get a positive fingerprint ID -- after the suspect waved his hand in front of the camera lens.
* Spoofed in the ''Series/ColdCase'' episode "Time to Crime": Detectives Vera and Jeffries are watching a videotape and notice something interesting in the background. Jeffries says, "Let's enhance this." The two detectives then get up from their chairs and walk closer to the TV screen. Vera laments that their station is too poor to have [[BuffySpeak one of those zoomer things]].
* Subverted in ''Series/DueSouth'', where the detectives are trying to identify a suspect in the crowd of a hockey game from the TV broadcast. They try zooming in on his face, only for it to be equally blocky. But they can still work out his ''seat number'', as they suspect he's a season ticket holder. Then they show the footage to an elderly deaf lady, who gives her best guess at lip-reading what he might be shouting.
* Subverted on the British show ''Series/{{KYVT}}'': In the murder special, the characters examine some CCTV footage and attempt to zoom in, only for the enhanced version to be even worse than the original.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'':
** Inverted in an episode where Angel is given a visual image taken from the ''psychic imprints'' of a blood sample. Angel asks if it can be cleaned up at all, only for Wesley to tell him no -- because it's not a real photograph.
** Played straight in "Dad", when the demonic lawyers zoom in 100x on Lorne's shirt pocket. Then again, they're demonic, so maybe their CCTV footage is high-definition.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** An early episode, "Duet", has a possible war criminal apprehended by the crew. After finding that the only known picture of him is blurry and small, they enhance it to perfect clarity and zoom in on different faces. (Like the ''Blade Runner'' example, this may be because they have [[AppliedPhlebotinum magical future technology]].) It's also {{lampshaded}}, since at first it just does a realistic low-resolution zoom on the face; when Sisko complains, Dax tells him the computer is still processing.
** In another episode, Sisko recovers a painting of an ancient obelisk containing markings on all sides. Naturally, only the forward-facing markings are visible in the painting, but Sisko needs to see all of them. He notices a waterfall behind the obelisk and uses his computer to reconstruct the markings from the waterfall's reflections. Except this is a ''painting'', and this can only work if the original painter was incredibly anal about the reflections. Perhaps AWizardDidIt -- the people who made the obelisk might have anticipated the need for this in the future, given their near-inability to think of time as a straight line.
* Inverted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The Corbomite Maneuver", where the crew is looking at an image of a BigDumbObject, and they can't see the entire thing unless they zoom ''out''. But for this to work implies the same principles that power the garden-variety Enhance Button.
** One can assume from this scene that the ship's forward-facing cameras must normally be tightly zoomed-in, and they simply reduced the magnification back towards a more normal view.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In "The Vengeance Factor", the crew finds a picture of someone with their face half hidden, and they're able to reconstruct the person's entire face, implicating her as the episode's villain.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E18IdentityCrisis Identity Crisis]]", Geordi asks the computer to isolate and enhance a quadrant of footage to show a sliver of a shadow, transfer the scene to the Holodeck, then remove the characters who were obscuring the shadow, before extrapolating the general 3D volume of the shadow-casting object. Justified in that Geordi is ''really'' reaching; the computer initially tells him there simply isn't enough data to tell him what he wants to know, so he plugs in what's essentially a guess for one of the missing parameters so that the computer will have enough data to make an estimate on the rest.
-->'''Geordi''': All right, let's say that my friend and I here are about the same size, say 1.7 meters. ''Now'' can you extrapolate its shape and its position?\\
''(an object appears that turns out to be over 90% right... [[spoiler:just in time for Geordi to start metamorphosing into a creature just like it]])''
** "Unification Part I" starts with a Starfleet admiral enhancing an image and discovering that Ambassador Spock was on Romulus.
*** The camera that took this image was in another star system and picked him out of a crowd. Future tech indeed!
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': Seems like every other episode the ship receives some kind of garbled transmission. All it takes is Harry or Seven to announce "Compensating!" and run a few filters, and the message becomes perfectly understandable, if not always crystal clear.
* ''Series/{{House}}'''s Enhance Button dances on the brink of absurdity. The gang is trying to interpret a heart scan, but they can't make out any detail on the small computer (and say "the pixels are the size of Legos"). They move the footage to bigger and bigger screens before projecting the footage in the hospital's cinema, which solves the problem but creates a different one (ignoring that if the problem was blocky pixels, the pixels should have gone from being Lego bricks to house bricks) -- why is it so difficult to look at routine medical diagnostic images on regular hospital equipment?
* ''Series/{{Bones}}'' has all kinds of crazy image stuff:
** In "[[Recap/BonesS1E5ABoyInABush A Boy In A Bush]]", this trope is subverted at first, when Booth asks to zoom in and is told that it won't work because the image only has so many pixels. Ten minutes later, they find a reflection in a door taken by the same security cameras by "repolarizing" it to do exactly what they just said they couldn't do. (Angela later claims to have a patent pending on the device, implying that it doesn't do anything we would know how to do yet.)
** In another episode, Booth and Bones take a scan of an image from a printed tabloid newspaper showing a dead victim, zoom in on the girl's ''eye'', and reconstruct the reflection of a building in the background. This should not have been possible given how many different things should have degraded the image along the way, even if the camera is really good.
** In "[[Recap/BonesS6E10TheBodyInTheBag The Body In The Bag]]", Booth manages to get his hands on a tape that has the VictimOfTheWeek having sex with her murderer, but since she's on top of him (only [[ToplessnessFromTheBack her bare back is visible]]) they can't see him. But Angela manages to identify him by using the reflections of his face in the objects in room and enhancing them until she can identify his face.
* On ''Series/BabylonFive'', not only is the computer able to enhance a motion-blurred image to perfect clarity, it is able to figure out from a vague verbal instruction which portion of the image Londo [[ContextSensitiveButton wants to enhance]].
* ''Series/{{Spooks}}'' goes back and forth on this. One episode shows MI5 taking an image captured by a spy satellite, "enhancing" it, and rotating it to see the face of one person and the ''shape of his sunglasses''.
* Averted and parodied in the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Birds and the Bees". Stottlemeyer and Disher look at a surveillance tape of their suspect and try to enhance it, but it's still too blurry to make out who the people are. Stottlemeyer sarcastically suggests that the blurs could be Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (Randy informs him that [[SarcasmBlind Ginger Rogers has been dead for years]]). Randy then points out the blurs on the screen, by circling them with a permanent marker.
* The pilot of the short-lived ''Series/ThreatMatrix'' showed Homeland Security examining a traffic camera footage, removing a man from the image, and revealing the briefcase the criminal was holding.

* A first season episode of ''Series/{{Numb3rs}}'' deconstructs this trope. They are able to "zoom in" on a poor-resolution image, but Charlie and Amita explain that what they're seeing isn't actually information contained in the original image (in fact, Amita explicitly shows them that just magnifying the image accomplishes nothing because the information is just not contained in the image), but rather a predictive tool that extrapolates from the existing data to fill in the missing information as best it can.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** Averted in "Shadows", when Scully comments that a blurry photograph on a computer monitor can't be enhanced because the resolution is too poor.
** The Season 2 episode "The Calusari" was the first appearance of Dr. Charles Burk, the FBI's resident digital imaging expert, and creator of a special photo enhancement software. He and Mulder use it to identify photon distortion caused by an "electromagnetic cloud", which is supernaturally luring a child into the path of an oncoming train.
** In one episode, the magic software takes a photo of white noise with a vague blur, removes all the white pixels, and inexplicably leaves an image showing a vital clue. Then again, the image was placed there by a ghost, so maybe the normal rules don't apply.
** In "Ascension", a thumb-sized section of a still from a cop-car surveillance camera is enhanced to reveal a crystal-clear image of a central character, giving the police a chance to save her. Even more incredibly, the footage doesn't otherwise relate to Mulder's case at all, and he was watching it by random chance.
** In "Rush", the Button colorizes black-and-white security camera footage, allowing Mulder to identify a blur on the frame as a school's letter jacket -- even though the blur was on screen for exactly one frame (''i.e.'', 1/30th of a second).
* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' goes back and forth on the Button. PerkyGoth technician Abby sometimes tries to explain that she can't enhance the photo, but her boss doesn't understand the tech and just expects her to work her magic. And sometimes, it is magic, like when she enhances a blurry reflection in a car door to reveal that the person's hand is missing a couple of fingers, or when she enhances CCTV camera footage from a hundred feet above a carrier deck to see a ''pill'' lying on the ground.

* Every show in the ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' franchise has used the Button to some degree. In the original ''Series/LawAndOrder'', the Button has been used to:
** Enhance a HomePornMovie to reveal the victim's tattoo;
** Enhance CCTV footage to reveal a decal in a car's window, showing which rental agency it's from;
** Enhance footage of a restaurant party, zooming in on a blurry image to reveal the restaurant's logo on the waiter's jacket (although this time, the logo is no less blurry; the techie just happens to recognize the logo);
** Remove a man's voice from a phone call, identify the vague noise in the background as water lapping against a boat, and from that identify the ''type'' of boat;
** Identify a blurry image on a man's hat, which was previously out of frame; Logan asked the tech to "push it up a few frames."
** {{Subverted|trope}} in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': The defendant (played by Creator/RobinWilliams) is caught on a security camera, and the enhanced image showing his face is presented as evidence. The defendant, [[AFoolForAClient representing himself]], shows the jury the original image, which is just of a blur wearing a baseball cap, and then cross-examines the enhancement guy and gets him to admit that the image of his face was, in essence, little more than guesswork on the part of the computer. The jury returns an acquittal.
--->''"I don't care how sophisticated your software is -- a guess is not the truth."''
* The ''Series/RedDwarf'' three-parter "Back to Earth" has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aINa6tg3fo ridiculous parody]] of the phenomenon (part of an episode-long pastiche of ''Film/BladeRunner''). The ''first'' command is to "uncrop", and it gets crazier from there. To see the other side of a business card, they enhance several different reflections (one from the metallic "H" in Rimmer's skull, and the rest from very distant objects, one of which is a faucet in someone's bathroom) before getting a clear image of the back of a guy who was not even in the original image. Then when they read the address on the back of the business card, Kryten asks if it would have been easier just to look him up in the phone book.
* In ''Series/MysteryDiners'', the Enhance Button is used repeatedly in the Anchor Bar (S10/10) episode. Surveillance footage taken outdoors at three in the morning in murky green light - which was blurry even at normal magnification ''and'' taken in the dark - is blown up to reveal the unidentified suspect has a large tattoo on his forearm. This appears as a big undifferentiated dark smear. Charles orders the pixellation to be cleaned up. Miraculously, a clearly detailed and identifiable tattoo of a dragon is revealed. This is used later to identify a suspect.
* In ''Series/{{Smallville}}'', Jimmy and Lois use the Enhance Button on a photo to reveal that Lex [[spoiler:killed his father]]. But the computer at the ''Daily Planet'' isn't "powerful enough" to do the enhancing, and they [[IdiotBall didn't think]] to make [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup more than a single copy]].

* Averted in ''Series/{{Alias}}'': Marshal is working to get a better look at a murderer's face from a very poor quality security camera. He creates a rendering program that takes the movement of the face in the image and attempts to reconstruct the face from there. It takes a day or two to render, and [[PhlebotinumBreakdown ends up failing due to a virus]].
* Parodied in ''Series/ThirtyRock'': Jack receives an old home movie of his younger self opening a now-forgotten birthday gift, but the object itself is always out of shot. Curious, he summons a techie to "zoom in and enhance" on the wrapped box to find out what's inside. The tech tells him he can't do that, but he has a better solution: just call the original gift giver and ask.
* Averted in the ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Day One"; Toshiko is trying to match a CCTV image to a database, but the CCTV image is "too low-res", and that's that.
* The original 1966 version of ''Series/MissionImpossible'' had an Enhance Button without a computer. In "The Bank", Barney pauses a recording of a bank vault on a black-and-white CRT screen, and Jim Phelps uses a ''pocket telescope'' to zoom in on the screen and read the number of a safe-deposit box.
* Spoofed on ''Series/TheSarahSilvermanProgram'': Sarah spots a curious detail in the background of a photo. Despite being the only person in the room, she tells no one in particular to "enhance to 125 percent". She then pulls out a magnifying glass and looks dramatically at the image. When that's not enough, she calls for another 50% and pulls out an even smaller magnifying glass. The process is punctuated with dramatic camera work and high-tech sound effects like a ''CSI'' enhancing sequence, but the image it reveals is exactly what you would expect if you looked at a photo with a magnifying glass -- ''i.e.'', just bigger and blurrier. Despite this, Sarah declares the image proof of... something (the viewer never quite finds out what).
* Played for laughs in the Belgian show ''Series/{{Neveneffecten}}'': When asked to enhance a blurry screen, the computer technician remarks that he normally can't, but they sometimes make exceptions for TV shows.
* In ''Series/TheLostRoom'', Jennifer Bloom "enhances" fifty-year-old footage of the Conroy Experiment and finds [[spoiler:the Occupant's face]] in the midst of the chaos. Not only does this not make any sense plot-wise ([[spoiler:the Occupant was miles away in a sanitarium at the time]]), but that piece of information doesn't even change anything. Even more annoyingly, the sequence wasn't in the original script to begin with; they added it during filming.
* Averted in the Krister Henriksson ''Series/{{Wallander}}'' episode "Blodsband": Wallander asks Nyberg if he would be able to enhance some surveillance footage, and is told that that wouldn't improve anything.
* In the pilot episode of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', the protagonist is blasted into deep space, positioned perfectly to deflect an interstellar fighter into an asteroid, killing the pilot. This pilot turns out to be the brother of a fleet commander, who upon viewing the footage of his brother's demise demands that his crew "peel the image." This process takes some time, but it produces a crystal-clear likeness of the main character, and the interior of his spacecraft, right through the canopy.
* The "magic zoom" is used very frequently on ''Series/FXTheSeries''. They justify it by claiming it's "fractal enhancement", and that they're analyzing high-quality film from movie shoots, so they have multiple high-quality frames from which to get pixels.

* Taken to an absurd extreme in the 2009 ''[[Series/{{V2009}} V]]'' series. The Visitors are able to analyze footage of an explosion caught by a fairly standard surveillance camera ''outside'' of a building and reconstruct not only the specific explosives used, but even a ''fingerprint'' supposedly left on one of the explosives ''inside'' the building. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] to the extent that the results were actually fake, but absolutely ''no one'' from Earth who did not already know better questioned the viability of the method -- or even asked how it could possibly work. Without context, a viewer could easily mistake the scene for parody.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':
** Subverted in "Almost Famous": A character is requested to zoom in on an image, and the image gets blurrier and more pixelated. The character is asked to zoom in again, and yet again, the image gets blurrier. They're still able to identify the subject of the picture, but it's nothing a real computer couldn't do. They try it again in the following episode, "Murder Most Fowl", and Beckett {{lampshade|hanging}}s Castle's expectation that this will work:
--> '''Castle:''' The enhancement only increased the pixelation on all these! You can't even see there's a side-view mirror!\\
'''Beckett:''' It's not like on ''Series/TwentyFour'', Castle -- in the [[ThisIsReality real world]], even zoom-and-enhance can only get us so far.
** Then they started playing it straight. In series 8, they take the CCTV footage of an internet café and "enhance" a laptop screen by zooming in on its reflection in the mirror. They can read the scanned document from the laptop screen, including the smudged-out notes scribbled in the margin.
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' plays with the trope:
** In one episode, Pierce and one of his elderly friends appear to be playing the trope straight on the computer -- only for the camera to zoom in and reveal that they're just trying to make the browser text [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia big enough for them to read]].
** In "Basic Lupine Urology", Britta seems like she's about to zoom in on a part of a photo, but she's really just showing off her ability to use a sepia filter. When they actually zoom in, it doesn't reveal anything new.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Chuck}}'' has Morgan and Casey trying to hunt down Chuck and Sarah after they go AWOL. After locating Chuck in a CCTV image, they don't even bother with enhancing; they just zoom right in on the ticket which is as clear as if it's being pictured from a few inches away, despite the original image being kind of grainy and taken from enough of a distance that even figuring out that it was him was a really impressive feat on their part.

* In ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'', Sky asks [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Mr. Smith]] to move back a tenth of a frame to find [[HologramProjectionImperfection a glitch in a holographic celebrity]]. This assumes that a "frame" is a measurement of time, which it isn't; it's just one of the many images that make up a video. You can only move back one frame at a time, and if the glitch happened between frames, you're out of luck.
* In the ''Series/{{Flashpoint}}'' episode "Severed Ties", the tech guy is able to take a photograph with a blurred girl in the background and sharpen the image of the girl, while blurring the rest of the image, with the touch of a button. It's as if he's just changing the focus on the original camera. There's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QV152jc3Ac real technology that can do that]], but it requires a special camera.
* In Chapter Eight of ''Series/TheFirm'', Ray [=McDeere=] enlists a "hacker" to help him enhance a man's reflection in a car window to get a high-quality image of the tattoo on the back of his neck. "And if I just enhance this area..."
* ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' has a low-tech example: Greg is demoted to football team photographer. He takes a shot of what appears to be the opponent's game-winning touchdown. With his darkroom equipment, he enhances the photo and reveals that the player's foot was out of bounds, giving his team the win (and making him the hero). [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball The real NFL]] often zooms in its footage to review plays exactly like this, to varying degrees of success.
* Parodied in ''Series/{{NTSFSDSUV}}'', where the Enhance Button is so powerful, they can even search through the pockets of the person in the picture.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Profiler}}'', they're trying to figure out how [[TheMole a mole]] is leaking information from inside the FBI. One theory is that he's giving out security camera footage, but they point out that the cameras specifically don't have an Enhance Button precisely to prevent anyone from reading confidential information from the footage. It turns out that [[spoiler:the mole affixed a cleverly-hidden telescoping device to the security camera]].
* ''Series/TheColbertReport'' loves to skewer this trope, often in combination with a BatDeduction, as in [[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/361889/october-12-2010/tip-wag---peabody-public-schools--andy-rooney---ground-zero-mosque-design this sketch]]. Fundamentally, they just make up whatever the enhanced image looks like (usually something ridiculous) and photoshop it in.
* In ''Series/TheWire'', Roland Pryzbylewski uses his Enhance Button to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT1oTLHXEcw reveal a photo of a license plate]]. It's not so much about the enhancing as it is about his very openly showing off his ability to do that:
-->'''Daniels:''' Sometimes you still scare me, you know that?
* Averted on ''Series/CommonLaw'': The detectives have a picture of a suspect driving a truck, but it is too low quality to tell them who the man is. They call in a police sketch artist and have him draw a composite sketch of the suspect based on the features they can see. It's a [[TheGenericGuy very generic likeness]], and in the end it doesn't really help their case much on its own.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'':
** In one episode, Finch tries to enhance a camera phone video, but can only turn a small blurry face into a larger blurry face. He does manage to work out a rough description of some distinguishing features from the enhanced image, and he uses a different program to identify possibly suspects who have said features.
** In the Season 2 finale, Reese is shooting at a bunch of attacking {{mooks}} [[spoiler:with guidance from the Machine]]. The Machine gives a perspective straight out of ''Film/EnemyOfTheState'', allowing the viewer to rotate the image -- except it already has the building's blueprints, and the human characters are flat and poorly rendered.
* The ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "Endgame" uses the Button to enhance the image of a camera pointed at the Stargate and identify the person who left a tracking device on the gate. Presumably, they could achieve the same result more realistically if they cobbled together security footage from multiple cameras (plausible for such a high-security complex), but it was faster this way.
* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' has a low-tech version: Sherlock takes a remarkable number of photos of his suspect as a very long train passes by, and then prints them and cuts out all the little slivers of face, until he has a reasonably good idea what his suspect looks like.
* In the ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'' episode "I'm Your Boogie Man", Maura uses an enhance button which is apparently sophisticated enough to expand an image caught by a webcam reflected off of a person's eyeball.

* Averted on ''Series/{{Fargo}}'': The cops have security footage of Lorne Malvo, but it's too low quality to make a positive identification. When Gus arrests Malvo, Malvo is able to convince the other cops that it's just a case of mistaken identity.
* In ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'' Season 2, Episode 18, Caleb is in the process of decrypting a video found on [[spoiler:A's cell phone]], when he shows Aria, Spencer, and Emily a frame they previously hadn't seen. After catching a glimpse of a blurry driver's license on the ground, Caleb proceeds to zoom into the frame twice, enhancing and showing the girls a very clear photo of [[spoiler: Alison's second fake ID]].
* Averted in an episode of ''Series/BronBroen'', when the Swedish cops are looking at a supermarket security camera video of a suspect. Saga asks if they can enhance the image to get a recognisable face, but their tech guy explains that the original quality of the recording is too poor to get anything more.
* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'' ChristmasEpisode [[Recap/TheFlash2014S2E9RunningToStandStill "Running to Stand Still"]], both Team Flash at S.T.A.R. Labs and Patty at Central City Police Station are able to zoom and enhance a video the Trickster [[DoNotAdjustYourSet broadcast across Central City]] to see a reflection of a teddy bear in his eye, cluing them in on his location. Given that when Comicbook/TheFlash and Patty arrive at the location, the Trickster has prepared a trap for them, it looks like [[BatmanGambit he planned for them to do this]].
* In the ''Series/BlakesSeven'' episode "Stardrive", a Federation patrol is blown up by a tiny one-man spacecraft pulling a HyperspeedAmbush. It's too fast to be seen by the naked eye, so they have to rewind a recording frame by frame to find the attacker. Despite this, the resolution is still high enough to zoom in on an insignia on the pilot's helmet and establish who he is. At least they have the excuse of this taking place in the future, when camera technology would have improved considerably.
* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'' usually avoids this trope, but in "Days of Misrule", WPC Stephens is able to enhance a photo from a speed camera to reveal a crucial piece of evidence in the rear window.
* Parodied in ''Series/BrooklynNineNine''. When presented with a grainy surveillance image that has a detail they need, Jake declares "It's time to ''squint''".

* Parodied on ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', when Howard and Raj find a drone crashed in Howard's backyard, and use footage from its onboard camera to try and return it to its owner. They spot a pin on the owner's lapel in the video, and Raj tells Howard to zoom in on it. Howard picks up his laptop and, making a "zooming" sound effect with his mouth, shoves it into Raj's face.
-->'''Raj:''' Yeah, I know you're being a jerk, but it's actually helpful.
* Mocked in ''Series/{{Barry}}''. Cops come to Barry's acting class with a video of a killer (actually Barry himself) shooting out the mobster who killed one of the aspiring actors. An actor suggests the cops use the "Enhance button" to get a clearer look at the picture, to which the detective answers "That's not a thing"
* Since ''Series/CriminalMinds'' focuses on criminal behavior, they usually skim over the collection of physical evidence. By the time the audience sees the picture, it's already been "enhanced," so maybe the sources are just incredibly clear. But in one episode, the unsub sent the team pictures he'd taken of them. They zoom in on Blake's sunglasses and get a crystal clear reflection of the unsub, despite sunglasses lens being curved, the unsub being at a distance, at an angle, through a chainlink fence. The worst part? All they see is his camera, gloved hands, and the window of the car he's sitting in. They don't even get anything useful out of the miraculously enhanced picture.
* Averted in an episode of ''Series/RookieBlue'', when Epstein is asked to do this to find out who shot a man dressed as a chicken (ItMakesSenseInContext) and answers that this isn't actually a thing.
* In the ''Series/MajorCrimes'' episode "Long Shot", a blurry shot of a license plate on a suspect's car actually sees their computer guy offer a few hours of "pixel magic" that will "maybe" turn something up; it does.

* ''Series/TheProfessionals'' had TheSeventies version in "Involvement". Bodie and Cowley are using a slide projector to go over some surveillance photos. Cowley sees someone lurking in the background of a shot and has Bodie adjust the projector lens to blow up the image. It helps in this case that the lurker turns out to be Doyle, so he's easily recognised.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'' Chapter 1, where Guybrush uses an analog optical telescope as an Enhance Button. He asks his first mate Winslow to "enhance the upper right quadrant" – Winslow just turns the telescope to increase the zoom. Guybrush then asks for "full enhancement", and Winslow holds up a ''second'' telescope at the end of the first one.
* The video game ''Film/BladeRunner'' requires you to perform the same Enhance Button sequence that famously happens in the movie. Fortunately, it's actually pretty cool to do it, and at least it's future tech.
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' has its own high tech version with the "Braindance editor". Semi-{{Justified}} in that you only get what the recorder's cyberware enhancements picked up, but you can still move around in it to view different angles, and get data the recorder didn't notice, and even download whole files when the recorder only saw a single screenshot.
* [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'' in Nod's introduction to Umagon. Slavik and Oxanna are examining recently-recorded footage, cutting, turning, zooming in, and finally ordering CABAL to extrapolate missing data to remove shadows. The resulting image is grainy except for the extrapolated parts, which are uncharacteristically smooth (and lack the Tiberium infestation later seen on the real Umagon). It does clue Oxanna in to the fact that the woman is a mutant, but not who she is. We later find out that CABAL's massive computing power comes from its being powered by [[spoiler:human brains]].

* ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands'':
** Parodied in episode 2, when Sasha tries to "enhance" the map of the Gortys Project by shouting "Enhance!" at the computer. You can get Fiona to join in, but eventually [[TheSmartGuy Vaughn]] will shut Sasha up and explain that computers don't work that way.
** Played straight in episode 4, where Rhys is able to enhance a holographic map of Helios projected from his cybernetic arm. Sasha's a bit annoyed that it works for him.
* In the intro video to ''[[Videogame/BattleZone1998 Battlezone II: Combat Commander]]'', Voyager 2 first appears to have an Enhance Button, scanning the Dark Planet and repeatedly zooming in on small sections of each scan. However, in the final scan, the light source it is observing is noticeably pixellated, though still detailed enough for Voyager to detect the light from a missile launch, whereupon [[WeaponizedLandmark Voyager enters combat mode]].

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/BitmapWorld'' [[http://bitmapworld.com/comic/issue38/ issue 38]]: Harry is watching a movie where the characters enhance a picture so much that the suspect's DNA is visible.
-->'''Harry:''' This movie is stupid!

* Parodied by ''Webcomic/{{Nedroid}}'' in [[http://nedroidcomics.livejournal.com/265654.html Crime Lab]]. Luckily, the killer's face just happens to be a 4x4 block of pixels and compression artifacts.

* Played with in ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'': Batman has an image enhanced more and more to see the culprit's face, to the point of zooming on a [[http://www.shortpacked.com/comic/reflection/ spoon a passerby just happens to be holding]] at the right angle -- only to realize that [[OnlySixFaces everybody's face looks the same anyway]].
* In ''Webcomic/TheWayOfTheMetagamer'', [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 Joel Robinson]] [[http://wayofthemetagamer.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/41384 invents a justified version of this trope]].
* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' averts this trope, and parody's ''CSI'''s usage of it in [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-11-05 this comic's]] commentary:
-->''Of course, if this was ''CSI'', some dude would magically multiply the resolution of the image, clean it up, and get the license plate of a nearby car from a reflection in Elliot's pupil.''

%%* Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'', [[http://www.housepetscomic.com/2011/10/12/not-another-new-character/ here]].
%%* Averted and parodied in [[http://skullpanda.com/post/23151750027 this]] ''Skull Panda Loves Everything'' comic.
* ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' plays the trope deadpan straight [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1298 in this comic]], but then lampshades it in the commentary after.
* Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Paranatural}}'': What the Vice Principal [[https://www.paranatural.net/comic/chapter-5-page-2 claims is the enhanced image]] is actually the image crudely redrawn in [=MS=] Paint to be more offensive.
%%* Played straight and exaggerated in [[https://xkcd.com/1719 this]] ''Webcomic/{{Xkcd}}'' comic, in which a characters seemingly uses a camera with super zoom even to find out that someone in some remote building has a stain in his shirt.

* ''WebVideo/LoadingReadyRun'' mocked this phenomenon in their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5cREeuum2E CSI parody]]. A lab tech uses a [[HandWave new software package]] to restore a security tape that was wiped with a magnet. However, the culprit is facing away from the camera, so he zooms in on the toaster and enhances the pixels, creating a crystal-clear picture of the toaster, but with no reflection. He runs a filter to find the reflection, extrapolates it into a full photograph, flips it, and zooms in a second time to get an image of the perp's name tag.

* Mocked in the pseudo-documentary of ''Theatre/AShoggothOnTheRoof'': One investigator watches an old Super-8 film of a performance over and over again. He notices a strange figure standing in the background whom no one really pays attention to ("Maybe he was the writer?"). He asks a technical person: "Can we enhance this photo to get a better image of this man's face?" She laughs, then tells him they can't. He sighs and then asks if they can just take a really good freeze-frame.

* Parodied on ''WebVideo/JonTron'' when he's ripping on ''Creator/DanAykroyd's'' Crystal Skull vodka and is watching a video of Mr. Aykroyd discuss his interest in the occult and supernatural while showing stock images of ghosts and alien spaceships. Jon decides to enhance an image of a Black Triangle U.F.O, pulls out an elaborate console with settings to magnify and enhance, and the image turns into a video of a chubby Asian man giggling furiously in front of a plate of food. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Naturally this passes without mention.]]
* WebVideo/CinemaSins calls it the "Zoom and enhance cliche" and it's an automatic sin.

* The first season finale of ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' has Slade deliver a recorded threat, then it turns out, ''bank'' on the Titans being able to see something reflected in a metal surface, which Beast Boy calls "squiggly lines. Way informative." before a few keystrokes refine it into a legible sign, which (this part is realistic, if unnecessarily showy) inverts horizontally into where they need to go.
* Defied hilariously in ''Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales''. C-3PO is hunting down R2-D2 and finds a video of him getting put into a shuttle. He asks a droid to magnify the picture and is told constantly that he can't. Annoyed, the droid ends up grabbing Threepio and slamming his face closer to the screen.

-->'''Raj:''' I know you're just being a jerk right now, but this is actually very helpful.

* Parodied in ''Webcomic/{{Paranatural}}'': What the Vice Principal claims is the enhanced image is actually the image crudely redrawn in [=MS=] Paint to be more offensive.

* Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''Literature/FoundationSeries'': "Literature/TheMerchantPrinces": Hober Mallow records the events when a Foundation missionary seeks refuge aboard Mallow's ship on the planet Korell. He later enhances an image on the Visual Record that shows an [[InvisibleWriting invisible tattoo]] on the missionary's arm. [[The tattoo says KSP, proving that the missionary is actually a plant - a member of the [[SecretPolice Korellian Secret Police]].]]

* ''Series/TheProfessionals'' had TheSeventies version in "Involvement". Bodie and Cowley are using a slide projector to go over some surveillance photos. Cowley sees someone lurking in the background of a shot and has Bodie adjust the projector lens to blow up the image.

* In the episode ''The Night of the Hangman'' of [[TheWildWildWest]] Artemus Gordon uses a projector to do this with photograph. While searching for clues he is able to easily zoom and pan across the image despite the series being set in the 1870s. The concept is even made fun of as the critical clue (a large balloon) is not visible in the part of the image he has zoomed into.

* In issue #11 of the original Marvel run of ''Comicbook/TheTransformers'', [[BigBad Shockwave]] accesses Rumble's brain to find out if he saw anyone breaking into the captured Ark. He uses his "more advanced" robot brain to enhance a pixelated image from Rumble's memory, revealing that Buster Witwicky had snuck in because he was too small to be noticed by Rumble at the time.
* The short-lived ''ComicBook/TheNewUniverse'' comic ''Spitfire and the Troubleshooters'' has an exceptionally implausible example, where a character uses a special helmet that visualizes computer data, and ends up "enhancing" an image of a villain's face -- generated from a ''written'' report.

* Played with in ''Film/DejaVu''. A secret government agency is using satellite data to reconstruct every aspect of an area in 3D, allowing them to zoom in at ground level, go inside structures, and even recreate audio. The protagonist is extremely skeptical, before it's revealed that [[spoiler:they're folding space-time to view past events in real time]].

-->"All you do is click the fix button and it’s done in five seconds."\\

* Things have turned up a notch thanks to [[ArtificialIntelligence neural networks]]. [[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.04802.pdf Enhanced Super Resolution Generative Adverserial Network]] (or ESRGAN for short) uses machine learning to generate super-resolution images even from base low-resolution pictures, the results of which are quite remarkably close to an actual Enhance Button. The system does require multiple passes to get it right, though.

* In Roger Macbride Allen's ''Literature/{{Inferno}}'', a computer compiles images from multiple security cameras to create a full representation of what's going on at a party. If anyone wanders out of frame in all of the cameras, the computer extrapolates as to where they were in the room during that period (although the image is low-quality).

* In the ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' episode "Scoop Picture Murder Case" Professor Agasa scans an image from a magazine and zooms pretty far in to help Conan find evidence - in the reflection on a mirror, which is partly behind a fire, at night. Of course he can enhance it with his advanced algorithms which account for air humidity and the position of the stars. Literally.

%%* Used in ''Film/TheTrumanShow'' to spot Truman's hand.

** In "The Vengeance Factor", the crew finds a picture of someone with their face half hidden, and they're able to reconstruct the person's entire face, implicating him as the episode's villain.

** {{Subverted|trope}} in an episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'': The defendant (played by Creator/RobinWilliams) is caught on a security camera, and the enhanced image showing his face is presented as evidence. The defendant, [[AFoolForAClient representing himself]], shows the jury the original image, which is just of a blur wearing a baseball cap, and then cross-examines the enhancement guy and gets him to admit that the image of his face was, in essence, guesswork on the part of the computer. The jury returns an acquittal.

* A first season episode of ''Series/{{Numb3rs}}'' deconstructs this trope. They are able to "zoom in" on a poor-resolution image, but Charlie and Amita explain that what they're seeing isn't actually information contained in the original image, but rather a predictive tool that extrapolates from the existing data to fill in the missing information as best it can.

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E18IdentityCrisis Identity Crisis]]", Geordi asks the computer to isolate and enhance a quadrant of footage to show a sliver of a shadow, transfer the scene to the Holodeck, then remove the characters who were obscuring the shadow, before extrapolating the general 3D volume of the shadow-casting object. Justified in that Geordi is ''really'' reaching; the computer repeatedly tells him there simply isn't enough data to tell him a blessed thing, so he just throws up his hands and orders the computer to use ''him'' as an estimate for ''all'' the missing parameters.

''(bullshit ensues as the computer gets the object over 90% right... [[spoiler:just in time for Geordi to start metamorphosing into a creature just like it]])''

* Mocked in ''Film/SuperTroopers'', in a scene where Ramathorn, sitting at a computer, trolls his superior by repeatedly saying "Enhance!" between random keystrokes, before his exasperated superior yells at him to "just print the damn thing!"

'''Kif:''' [[RealityEnsues That's all the resolution we have. Making it bigger doesn't make it clearer]].\\