Enlarging images to print (1 Viewer)

Don't know if this will interest anyone but I tried out a freebie version of Genuine Fractals 3.0 over the weekend and was surprised at how good it was at enlarging ones prints. If you're anything like me one tends to view photos on-screen rather than print them out, but occasionally it's nice to print out a really good pic. Normally 2.1mp pics print out at roughly 14 x 10cm at the optimum 300dpi res (in PS: Image>Image Size>Resolution 300 pixels/inch, making sure the 'resample image' is unticked)., yet using GF it is possible to print out an A4 with remarkably little loss of quality (with some reservations). I've used Photoshop almost every day for the last ten years in my work, so I am quite critical of quality but, I confess, I was very surprised (especially as I'm sure I used an earlier version some years ago and didn't think the results too good) just how good the pics came out. The developers reckon it can enlarge up to 650% - my A4's worked out at 207% so, according to them I could make my photo's far bigger if I so choose (I have my doubts about this personally). I experimented on pics of a grey-phase gyr, a siskin on peanuts, a close-up of a foxglove and a pic of my cousin fishing with his mate. All came out well bar the pic of my cousin, where I felt the flesh tones weren't brilliant (though everyone I showed it to thought it wonderful, so that may be my over-critical eye!). Another slight critisism on this particular pic was that some edges looked slightly too harsh. I did try another pic of a friend with a gyr, but the pic was taken in low light on a snowy day and, though it was far better than anything I could've done by resampling in Photoshop, I wasn't satisfied with the results, so, as usual, it's better to start off with a decent pic in the first place. Pics with little depth of focus, so that the background is blurred, seem to work particularly well.

GF is a plug-in for Photoshop (also works with Elements and PS Pro V5 and over, so the lit. tells me) and a trial version can be downloaded from:

www.lizardtech.com

or I got it on the freebie CD that came with this months 'Digital Photography Made Easy'. The Pro version costs 199 but an LE version retails at 33 (sorry, my UK 'pound' sign has inexplicably stopped working!).

There is other software around that does the same job (I think there's one that is shareware or even freeware), but I can't vouch for their usefulness as I haven't tried them. It's also possible to do the same job in Photoshop I believe by step-resampling in increments of 10%, but again I've not bothered trying this (I will when I have the time).

I have a cracking photo of a peregrine's head done on a 6mp camera that my uncle sent me, which I plan to print out onto oversized A3 paper on my Epson 1290. I'll let you know how I go on, if I can find the b****y photo . . . ! (is everyone's filing system as good as mine!!).

saluki

I had a go witht he freebie CD too and I wa very pleased with the results. It's a bit expensive to buy though once you exhaust the free go's.

Interestingly, a 'well-known UK weekly photo magazine' has just tested this product and, whilst giving it the thumbs-up, they also referred to the alternative method of interpolating the resolution up in Photoshop. 'Incremental-interpolation' (apparently, well-known to the experts), whereby you repeatedly increase the resolution many times by just a small amount (1%-5%) each time rather than the full amount all at once. I've never tried it and it could be time-consuming with a big file but at least it doesn't cost anything extra!

I realise this is not the original thread,but could anyone please tell me the best way to compress photos for email,and come up with good results? nice photos on our local web site Adey like your pictures,how do you compress your photos and then send them to Andy?

John

I've used GF print pro but I think the results are very subject dependant.... and seem to me to be more suited to Inkjet printers, where-as I use a commercial fuji frontier for my prints.

I've got a Fred Miranda action that seems quite good at 200%, though I think a lot of these specialist interpolation programmes work better with RAW files from modern dslr's.... rather than my humble Nikon cp990/4500.

I've always rated photoshop's bicubic going up in small stages (I'd like to think this is a fairly popular method, not confined to 'experts'). There's some in-depth info and examples somewhere on the web... can't remember the url.

Hi John

When sending shots to Andy for the local website news page(http://www.lros.org.uk/News.htm for anyone else interested) I use the marquee tool in Photoshop to crop the bird to approx the area of the final picture (higlight the area required then go to Image> Crop). As the photos on-screen on the website are 250x180 pixels it's necessary to re-size them in Image>Image Size with the 're-sample' box checked. By entering either the 250 or 180 into the appropriate 'pixels' box you can see how much you need to crop from the other one. By magnifying the image up, it's easy to use the Marquee tool again to crop off the right amount. Later versions of Photoshop and Elements have File> Save for Web which is the 'web-optimised' function that Andy requests. There's a slider-box to alter the quality setting with on-screen info giving the size of the compressed jpeg file. Andy likes it around 20Kbs. Otherwise, just send it at the highest jpeg setting and let him do the rest! As with all these 'Photoshop' functions, it's much quicker to do than to explain!

As for email, then it's a similar thing, although you're not restricted to the 250x180 size. For on-screen viewing, photos can take quite a bit of compression but too much and they look really 'orrible! Check a few random images in the gallery which all have the image size and file size info on them to get a good idea of how far to compress them.

Look forward to seeing some of your shots on the LROS site - it'll make a change from the regular few names ( which haven't included mine, recently, as everything seems to be hiding from me in my neck of the woods!).

Adey

Adey,many thanks,

John