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August 14, 2009
[DIGITAL BLOW-UPS]
There comes a time in a digital photographer's life when the image from the camera is simply not big enough to give satisfaction.
A picture straight from Imaging's Nikon D300 can be configured to 30cm by 45cm at 240dpi, which is not quite big enough for an A3+ print (32.9X48.3cm). The file needs to be enlarged to fit.
A small degree of enlargement like that is not a problem. Just go Ctrl-Alt-I in Photoshop and reset the dimensions, choose Bicubic Smoother and bingo! However, if the degree of enlargement is greater – say a cropped part of the image enlarged to A3+ – the process is not so straight forward. Simply doubling or quadrupling the image size will produce ghastly results.
Adobe recommend that enlargements made in Image Size should be in ten per cent increments for best results. And if the enlargement is 400 percent that can take forever, 10 per cent at a time.
American photographer and Photoshop expert, Fred Miranda, sells a Photoshop action (www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/SIpro) that automates the process. With the photo that is to be enlarged open in Photoshop you choose the degree of enlargement in the Action drop-down and then run the action. Fred also offers a variation on the theme with a suite of Resize Pro Plug-ins for specific camera models. SI Pro costs US $24.90 and Resize Pro is US $19.90. Both are available for PC or Mac.
The big shots of photo enlarging software are Alien Skin Blow-up 2 (www.alienskin.com US $250) and Genuine Fractals 6 (ononesoftware.com US $300) These are also Photoshop Plug-ins. Trial versions of both are available for download. Blow-up 2 is fully functional for 30 days and Genuine Fractals overlays a watermark on the final image, but at least you can see how it works.
We compared the three programs by taking a close-up of a watch face using the best camera/lens combination we have. We did no post-camera processing except to enlarge a section of the picture 400 per cent. We then printed the three images, side by side on a single sheet of Canon's best inkjet paper. After all, the only reason for enlarging images is to produce big prints. We inspected the prints with a magnifying glass. It is impossible to show the results in low resolution newspaper images so you must try it for yourself.
Enlarging applications need to reduce the appearance of pixellation without losing fine detail. Adobe's simple ten percent increment process produces a grainy result with sharp high contrast edges but it is barely acceptable.
Fred Miranda's plug-ins add extra steps in the process to improve edge sharpness and contrast. Results are good.
Of the two expensive applications Alien Blow-up 2 achieves the best compromise between smooth surfaces and sharp edges. Fine detail, such as the watch numerals, is reproduced without any jagged outlines. Genuine Fractals results are closer to Miranda's output.
Viewed from a normal distance the three prints are different but none is better than the others. Frankly we can't see why anyone would pay more than US $20 for an enlarging plug-in.
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Posted by terry at August 14, 2009 09:46 AM
