Let's Get Digital

Hands-on evaluation of Genuine Fractals 2 
Vs. 
Photoshop 5.5 bicubic up sampling

One of the biggest problems we often face from a digital camera, scanned film or a scanned photo is that the size of the file, itself, is too small for printing. As the size of the file gets bigger, the cost naturally becomes more expensive.  

There is an alternative solution to this dilemma. For example, if you have a 6MB file in a Photoshop or TIFF format, all you can do is print it at 4 X 6 inches (@300 DPI minimum). Or you can upsample the file (insert pixels) within Photoshop.  This has never been a choice for quality conscious photographers and digital artists.  But now, with Genuine Fractals 2 (a new software by Altamira Group) you have a far better choice.  This is how it works:  

Save your file with the GF2 extension (.stn) which will reduce the file to around 3MB. After you've done your work in Photoshop and you are ready to print your artwork, save the file again and open it for printing to your desired print size. The Altamira software will give you a choice of expansion resolutions. For example, if you want to print A3(11 X 16 inch) you will need to expand it to 38MB. FG2 uses a special algorithm to insert pixels into your artwork with a minimum degradation to the image. It is important to know that you do need a quality scanned artwork to begin with, and expansion is limited to 4 times the original size.    

1) Interpolation or up-sampling with FG2  has a very good edge retention.  As a result, it looks sharper.  There is a definite lesser amount of color overrun with FG2 as you can see on the tree trunk, little red flower, zoom picture of the robe knot, and the hands where the color saturation is stronger.

Color over-run perception becomes obvious when interpolation ratio  is more then 1:4

2) I always try to avoid Photoshop interpolation for obvious reasons and I was surprised to see that it does a good job of it, provided you have a good scan and you can balance your work with the unsharp filter.

Conclusion:   Genuine Fractals 2 is a great product; it works well!  Based on my test, the improvement level is 20-30%.  Lenscape workshops is planning a photo exhibition in the year 2000 and we'll definitely use Genuine Fractals 2 .

Note: Lenscape Workshops is in no way connected with Altamira Group or commercially promoting their product.  This test was done to provide more information to all photography and digital enthusiast.

As we are in the business of providing an excellent learning experience, we get a chance to play with a lot of hardware and software. Our evaluation, most of the time, is hands on and extreme, so if you have any questions related to hardware and software, please let us know. If we cannot help you, we will surely find the one who can. You can email us at: lenscape@lenscape.com

Abe Rafiq,  Managing Director of Lenscape Workshops Ltd.