Genuine Fractals or pxl SmartScale or Other?

[Rob Larsen]

I'm looking for a good method to scale up my 10D prints beyond 8x10". I've been reading that products such as Genuine Fractals and pxl SmartScale (Extensis) offer better quality than PS bicubic interpolation. I'm looking for a good tool to interject into my workflow for creating prints ranging from 8x10" to about 20x30".

Has anyone performed a comparison of the various interpolation tools available? Any words of wisdom for producing the larger prints? At home I print up to 13" wide on my Epson 2000P and plan on using a local photo lab's Lightjet 5000 for larger.

Regards,
Rob
Erie, Colorado

[who10]

I compared Genuine Fractals and Fred Miranda’s Stair Interpolation when I first got my D60 – I found his Photoshop action to produce better results to my eye. I also use FM’s WP Pro plug-in to resize images for the web. As I’ve only compared these actions against Genuine Fractals I'm tempted test the trial for pxl Smartscale, but so far I am really pleased with results I get from Miranda’s plug-in. If you have Photoshop it’s well worth the $20 he charges.

Here’s an example of a D60 crop I had printed at 20x24 on a Lightjet. The first image is the original D60 frame for context, the second the image I had printed and the third a 100% crop out of the final image.

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/Original.jpg
http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/FinalCrop.jpg
http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/HeadShot-ActPix.jpg

Here's a link to FM actions if you're intersted:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/actions

[henkbos]

For printing I suggest that you have a look at QImage (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage). It produces far better results than PS and uses it's own algorithms for enlarging. You can download a demo.

[lightandlife]

Could you post a cropped head shot from the original, as big as the head shot after FM?

Otherwise, it is difficult to compare the original and FM processed image.

[who10]

lightandlife,

Here's a jpeg with 100% crop of the original overlayed on a 100% crop of the final resized image - roughly 2"x2.5" and 11"x9" respectively.

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/Compare.jpg

____
David

[nucki]

Maybe this link is interesting for you

http://www.nyphotographics.com/ftppage.htm

regards
Peter

[henkbos]

Can't post a crop, since QImage produces temporary files, that are only used during printing.

[lightandlife]

Who

I hardly see any difference between your (new) original and the head shot after the fractal processing.

Maybe it is my monitor that does not see the difference.

[who10]

lightandlife,

Sorry - misread the question...

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/FMCompare.jpg

The left side of the image is straight Photoshop bi-cubit, the right FM Step Interpolation. I don't have a Genuine Fractals sample.

______
who10

[lightandlife]

Who,

Maybe it is my monitor, but it appears that the left pic is more natural, and I can see it is a wild animal.

On the other hand, from the right pic, I get the impression that the tiger is a model pet tiger, taking a bath every day, even perfumed, and no dirt in the paws.

[kafene]

who10 wrote:
lightandlife,

Sorry - misread the question...

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/FMCompare.jpg

The left side of the image is straight Photoshop bi-cubit, the right FM Step Interpolation. I don't have a Genuine Fractals sample.

______
who10



Pretty impressive. You printed on Lightjet? What res. do you normally print final prints? 150 DPI would be great, but many print at 75 dpi and it's not that bad (that bad, being subjective here because it's "no bad" compared to what I would have expected from a small size file).

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Hi,

maybe I look wrong but I did some testing with PS7.01, pixelenhancer (extensis) and the action but I can't see ANY difference between all the pictures ???

What am I doing wrong.

I save the 3 pictures as TIFF and look at them full size and I really can't see a difference, is it only seen on print ?

Greetings,
Frank

[who10]

After several post questions I realized I did not explain the pictures very well. Let me try again. The original thread question asked what utilities were suggested for assuring good clean scaling results for big enlargements. I personally found that a $20 Photoshop action using step interpolation did a better job to my eye than either Genuine Fractals or the bicubic algorithms built into Photoshop 7. All three methods work very well.

This first link simply illustrates the magnitude of my particular scaling – the small inset being a 100% crop from the original image, the outer one a 100% crop of the final image. The full image file is a 123mb 24x20” image at 300dpi (ICC profiled for a specific Lightjet on Fuji Crystal Archive). The sample below is a jpeg resized to 72dpi for more comfortable web loading:

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/Compare.jpg

This second link “FMCompare” shows equal scaling of the original crop, the left side I used Photoshop 7.01 bi-cubic, the right side is scaled with the FM step interpolation action.

http://www.haskellct.com/EE_Galleries/Gallery1/webguests/FMCompare.jpg

What impressed me was the difference in the actual prints more than what is seen on the monitor. Printing my 72dpi crops won’t show you that. You can, however, see differences in sharpness and detail preservation. Best is a matter of taste - both are very good.

Happy Scaling!
David Hooten (who10)

As a side, I use two Lightjet labs; one lab recommends 300dpi 16bit TIFFs the other 250dpi 8bit TIFFs. A Lightjet is an RGB device – so I use Adobe RGB as the embedded color workspace.

[kafene]

I think I understood you the first time. Although I don't know the results of other apps. I do know Fractals is great, from what I've been told. If i'm going to res up my images, I'd use a third party if I could. Thanks for the comparo's.

and Who10. I like your nick. Clever ;-)

kafene.

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Well ok, here I see a big difference.
When I do it I see absolutly no difference, but I use no after sharpening, I just run the free action, Pixelscaler and PS itself.

I will try some more.

What I do.
Take a detail from a picture and resize this in 3 options.
1x PS
1x Pixelscaler
1x free action

On my monitor (a very good one) I see no difference at all.

Do you guys do some USM after scaling ? or before ?

Greetings,
Frank