Who's Used Genuine Fractals/Perfect Resize Software?

I’m about to embark on a project that will generate portrait images. They would go into a book, but would probably be used subsequently as part of an exhibition that would enlarge them greatly (maybe 3×4 feet or larger).

My Nikon D700 and D3 would be my normal cameras of choice (love ‘em both…haven’t found a compelling reason to upgrade before). But each have sensors with only 12MP capacity. While this has proved enough for me to print some pretty big images, I am wondering whether it would work with images that were blown up to the large sizes being considered here.

It seems to me that it might not. One option is to upgrade a camera (obviously the D800 with the 36MP sensor would be the choice in that case). That’s $3,000 and a wait for availability. But for $200 I could also buy the Perfect Resize (formerly Genuine Fractals) software, which hits the pocketbook for a lot less. It is supposedly designed to do just what I may need to do and has been around for a long time.

But my question is – what would be the downside of processing the original D700 or D3 images through this software. They claim to eliminate any halos or other artifacts. But there is bound to be some trading off of image quality as the enlargement increases (of course I have no proof whatsoever of that – only my intuition!). So what is the experience of the LS community with using this software?

by Neal Jackson at 2012-06-16 13:03:48 UTC | Bookmark | | Report spam→

I’ve used that software for several years.
Even in its earlier forms it was fantastic. The new release is better than ever.
I’ve created prints 300% original size without anything you see.
I’ve created resizes for other uses at 400% and even at full 100% viewing,, you cannot find any visual sign of upsizing.
Even at 800% it’s adequate for some purposes,, though not for professional print usage.

Obviously some things upsize better than others… and it depends how you’re going to use it, but I’d say as long as you don’t go over 2-300%, you don’t have anything to worry about even by the most discerning eyes.

by Gene Tewksbury | 17 Jun 2012 02:06 (ed. Jun 17 2012) | Denver, United States | | Report spam→

I’ve also been using GF and now PR for many years and they’re great. Highly recommended.
A trick… Instead of upsizing your file by 300% do multiple resizings of 25-50% a time. Seems to be a little (just a little) bit better and, of course, it takes longer.

by James Colburn | 17 Jun 2012 02:06 | Omaha, Nebraska, United States | | Report spam→