What do you do when you have to work on billboard-sized images, but your little computer can’t handle them? Work at smaller dimensions and then upsample at the end! But images can get too blurry when you increase the resolution, so what should you do?
Genuine Fractals
Better Image Enlargement Quality
Genuine Fractals uses a complicated series of algorithms to increase the image size and keep everything looking sharp. It does a much better job than Photoshop alone can do when making images larger.
Disclaimer: You’re really not supposed to upsample images at all because the image details start to become fuzzy and it plain looks bad, but sometimes you just have to and for that you need Genuine Fractals.
Now, to be honest, it’s not a miracle worker. It cannot magically make details where none exist. But it is very good at taking a medium resolution image and resizing it to a high resolution image, or even better, high resolution image to a large format image (think 8 megapixel image to poster sized). onOne (the manufacturer) claims that you can enlarge images up to 1000% of the original size with the latest version (Version 5 at the time of this writing).
Briefly How to Use It
Using Genuine Fractals is very easy; it’s an intuitive program to use. You need to flatten the image in order to use the plugin, so you might want to save a copy of the original layered file. When you’re ready, go to the new menu that is created and choose Resize Image and a dialog box comes up that simply asks what resolution and what dimensions. You’ll get a preview of the image to the left.
Resizing is only the basics of what Genuine Fractals can do. The onOne website lists many more uses for their program, including increasing the resolution of digital video footage and batching files that need to be enlarged.
Examples
The example below shows a 2” x 3” image at 300 resolution (standard print quality in pixels per inch) resized to 21x30 at 300 (1000% of original size) and viewed at 100% zoom.
In this example, I noticed that the Genuine Fractals resize was much sharper in the details and there was much more distinction between objects, but it also tended to get a little posterized in the textures. I’m using Genuine Fractals 4 here.
Quick Specs
Just to make sure you can use the latest Genuine Fractals
If you’d like to try it before buying, onOne offers a free 30 day trial, but you will have to register your information with them.
What are your experiences with interpolation software? Do you have one that you like better than Genuine Fractals?
Thanks, Lauren. I think I’ll give it a try. You’re right that up-sampling is not ideal, but there are occasions when one has no choice. I’ve always used Photoshop for those rare instances, but now it looks as though I have another tool — and perhaps a better one.
Overall I like Genuine Fractals, though, obviously, I would rather just have a high res image! Tell me what you think of it once you give it a whirl, John.
I have read about programs that can make a decent job of upsizing images but always wondered if they really worked. Thanks for the info - looks like it might be worth a try next time I have to res up an image (hate doing it but like you say sometimes you have to).
I think GF works best when you are dealing with an image that is already a pretty high resolution, like say at least 8x10 at 300 (I’m not sure what you’re standard large photo is in metric, Tara, but Wikipedia says it’s 203 × 254mm) and that is resized pretty large, to poster or bigger (24x36 in, between A1 and C1 in ISO paper sizes).
After reading that Wiki entry on paper sizes, the way the measurements work everywhere except the US just keeps making more sense! I don’t understand why we have to be different… it makes things confusing! Tara (and John) do you understand and know the “U.S. customary units”—inches, feet, yards and so on?
Hi Lauren, I have never understood why the US still use inches for paper sizes, you are ahead of us for everything else. Its odd we use metric for paper sizes but have still stuck with miles (imperial) for distances and miles per hour whereas I think you are in Km?
I’m old enough to understand inches yards etc
(even though at school most stuff was metric) but a lot of younger people in the UK won’t understand.
Thanks for the info, Lauren. I should try GF as well. Sometimes I get those tiny images from the clients that they want to use on huge posters, and it’s impossible to get a higher resolution images from them. So I do my best with the resizing, sharpening, etc.
Even though the metric system is official here, in Canada, many still use inches, prices at the store are per pound rather than a kg, etc. It’s taking me awhile to learn the American system - I’m so used to the metric one. Well, at least everyone uses Celsius here, not Fahrenheit :-)
No, we use miles. Tara. I thought you used Km! No way, you really still use miles??? Is that only in the UK? What about the rest of Europe (and Canada, Vivien?). I think metric, being based on 10, makes more sense than ours, which is based on… nothing. I kind of started to understand and work with metric measurements in school, but I could never get my head around Celsius—though it too makes much more sense… let’s see, in F, water freezes at 32 and boils at 212… uh huh. At least they don’t make us use Kelvin!
Vivien, GF probably won’t work all that much better than Photoshop if you’re trying to upsample a web image for print (I don’t want to mislead you!). There’s just no replacing good ol’ high res. I recommend you download the 30 day trial and check it out first if that’s what you’re planning to use it for mostly; see what you think (and let me know!).
oh, ok - thanks for the warning, Lauren. I’ll give it a try and see how it works with low res images.
We mainly use KM here, but some people still quote in miles. And the gas is sold per litre here, not per gallon. Even though the metric system is official here, all real estate properties are still quoted in sq. feet rather than sq. metres - crazy :-)
I agree, the US needs to get on the metric bandwagon. I remember learning it in 1st or 2nd grade, how the whole world was gonna be metric, And it pretty much is except for the US and Liberia and good ol’ Myanmar (aka Burma). That puts us in some pretty good company, eh?
foresmac,
LOL, yes, wonderful company. I learned the metric system in grade school, too. It really makes more sense, but for now maybe we can just use points and picas? :)