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software for enlarging digital images
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Can anyone recommend software or a photoshop plug-in for resizing / enlarging photos to poster-size?
I need to blow up a photograph to A1 to be offset-printed on a poster, and have only an 10 Megapixel camera. So I’m thinking that I should use something better than the Photoshop resizing algorithm.
Any particular good one? Anyone to avoid? Thanks for any help!
by
Leslie Kuo
at
Thu May 17 12:43:06 UTC 2007
(ed. Mar 12 2008)
Berlin,
Germany
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Another good option is Blow Up by Alien Skin.
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While I was writing about photography for About.com I tested some of these things. The best I found was one called Sizefixer, and my piece on that is still on line at the moment: http://photography.about.com/od/imageprocessing/fr/fixerlabs.htm
However it isn’t cheap. I did conclude that for most purposes there was little real advantage in any of these things – you would probably find Photoshop good enough. It’s not actually a huge blow up – you have about a quarter of the information you really need.
I looked at GF and the Miranda SI stuff some years ago, but they didn’t do well enough in my (admittedly unscientific) tests for me to feel them worth writing about.
Peter
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Genuine Fractals… I print a lot of 20X30”’s from 6 MP cameras and they look good on my gallery’s wall. Smaller enlargements wih PS using bicubic smoother do well in conjunction with Photokit Sharpener, but anything really big looks better with GF. You can also build an action in PS to enlarge a folder full of images. Like Peter Marshall above, its nothing scientific, just a hell of a lot of prints through wide format Epsons over the last 4 years.
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I used Fred Miranda’s software to prepare material for Alamy and they failed the QC test. I was not happy. They were completely over sharpened. Anyway, I’ve not used it since. Now I simply up-res in CS1 and do a little sharpening, 200% at radius .3 or thereabouts and results are terrific. Holds true extremely well and will stretch a hell of a lot.
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I also tried GF and decided that CS1 and bicubic smoother did a better job. 6 mp files stretched 175% to about 18×12 at 300 dpi shot on a Tokina lens and they were delicious and that was after Noise Ninja too. Jpeg original at 800 iso on a D100.
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i guess GF performs better on greater strechings…i mean 800% as they claim is not presentable…but 300% did hold…
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I have found that PS works well. I got good A1 prints from a 6mp camera
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Hiyall,
the BEST software for resizing/upsizing …. by far ….. is “SIZEFIXER” from Fixerlabs. Available in Mac & PC(for the unconverted).
I can definately vouch for the Mac version (obviously never touch a PC so can’t vouch for that!) – two strengths – SLR which will take you up to A1 (which is what I have and in reality it will go much bigger) .... and XL ... which is supposed to go up to … well … as big as you like.
Trust me (I’m a photographer :-}} ... this works!!
Web site …...... http://www.fixerlabs.com/New_Website/pages/apps.htm
They have special offers on right now …........
To me it knocks spots off (so as to speak) GF and Photoshop ….. and does a magic job of effortlessly upsizing your files for excellent ultra large prints.
(PS …. I am in no way associated with or even vaguely know anybody associated with Fixerlabs …. just love their software!)
Cheers,
Brian
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Bicubic Smoother with PS, just because someone wants to charge you $xxx for some software doesn’t mean you’ll get better results. Download a trial version and see for yourself, then send me the money you’ve saved and we’ll call it even.
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Yes Photoshop will have no problem doing that. Im sure those expensive plug-ins will work too but this is the free method and works just as well. This method is from Scott Kelby’s book ‘The Photoshop cs2 book for digital photographers’ (He’s the editor of Photoshop User Magazine) and I have used this method with fantastic results. A lot if it goes against everything we know that we should not do with upsizing in PS but it works, if you dont like the results feel free to buy 3rd party software.
Start by taking your image that is at 300 dpi in it’s native size of aprox. 8.6”x 13” go to ‘Image size’, with ‘resample image’ checked change the dimensions to the size you need, now change the resolution to 360 dpi without letting the dimensions change from what you set, from the drop down menu change the resample to ‘Bicubic Sharper’ not ‘smoother’, I know your shaking your head but trust me. Click OK and be amazed. DOnt forget to do your ‘unsharpening’ last. This method only works in CS and CS2 for some technical reason. I’ve passed this along to professional retouchers and they cant believe it either till they’ve tried it.
BTW the book I mentioned is the most informative useful PS book I’ve ever used with solutions designed specifically to photographers. It lives next to my keyboard.
Good luck..
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Bill,
Thats an amazing little tip you had there. I tried it and blew up a a 6×9 14mb print to a Godzilla 24×36 350mb print that looked great on screen. I couldn’t possibly print that at home so I don’t know what it would look like. My computer almost had a heart attack. In her tutorials, Julieanne Kost says she doesn’t interpolate up more than 100% using PS…and thats from Adobe. Contradictions all over the place. Personnally I’ll stick with the Genuine Fractals/Photokit Sharpener. Cheers. G.
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The bottom line is that enlarging techniques are like a person’s choice in cars. It’s all about what you prefer. I always use Alien Skin Blow up, followed by a slight noise reduction, then a slight unsharp mask. I haven’t done many side-by-side comparisons, but Blow up, I thought, did a better job than GF.
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Genuine Fractals is the one. I am also in the same situation: looking for a good software to enlarge some of my images. Everyone I have talked to have sugested GF. I dowloaded the trial version from the site and tested it myself. It´s perfect.
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Gregory.. Just crop out a section or two that contain important detail, or that are areas that may show artifacts, and print those.
As for PS (and Lightroom) books, I like Marin Evening’s texts. Written by a working photographer, for photographers.
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OK…Just printed out a cropped section of a 24×36 print from a 6×9 using both Bill’s method AND Genuine Fractals. My eyes can’t tell the difference BUT under a loupe the GF print IS sharper. Both sharpened with Photokit Sharpener.So?
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So.. it’s a tie. Just kidding, considering a print that big would be viewed from 6 ft away there prob equal but if you were just cropping in real tight on part of a image that would wind up being say 11×14, GF might have the edge. Either way it’s nice to know there’s options out there, especialy free one’s..
Thanks for doing the test prints Gregory, valuable info there.
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