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Photo Forum / Digital Photography / Digital Photo / October 2006

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Lizard Tech - Genuine Fractals

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Pte227@aol.com - 21 Sep 2006 20:51 GMT
Hi Everyone
Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
3.0LE version a couple of years ago but have never got it to work as
Lizard Tech claim. It is supposed to enlarge up to 600% with virtually
no loss of resolution. When I enlarge an image using Genuine Fractals
the result is no different from the same enlargement using Photoshop's
bicubic re-sampling! I guess I must be doing something wrong but I've
tried many times following the manual instructions as best I can.
Anyone got any ideas where I am going wrong?
Thanks & Regards
Pte
rafe b - 21 Sep 2006 21:13 GMT
> Hi Everyone
> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Anyone got any ideas where I am going wrong?
> Thanks & Regards

Your experience is not unique.  There are a few people
who swear by this product, but there's another group
(myself included) who have concluded that there's no
there there.  (I worked with an older version that came
with my Nikon scanner.)

rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com
Bill Hilton - 21 Sep 2006 21:13 GMT
>Pte...@aol.com wrote:
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> the result is no different from the same enlargement using Photoshop's
> bicubic re-sampling!

Many people have come to the same conclusion.  I had GF 2.0 (bundled
with a scanner) and tested it on several images and felt I could get
better results with Photoshop too, at least at the magnifications I was
using.

Bill
Bill Tuthill - 22 Sep 2006 21:39 GMT
>> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
>> 3.0LE version a couple of years ago but have never got it to work as
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> with a scanner) and tested it on several images and felt I could get
> better results with Photoshop too, at least at the magnifications I used.

That's interesting, because I have compared the Lanczos filter in Irfanview
and ImageMagick with Photoshop bicubic and bicubic smoother.  In all cases
where upsampling aspect ratio remained 1:1, Lanczos produce sharper/smoother
edges and better detail.  Perhaps bicubic might be better when changing
X and Y axes in different ratios; it is known for that.
Bill Hilton - 22 Sep 2006 23:36 GMT
>> Bill Hilton <bhilton665@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> Many people have come to the same conclusion.  I had GF 2.0 (bundled
>> with a scanner) and tested it on several images and felt I could get
>> better results with Photoshop too, at least at the magnifications I used.

>Bill Tuthill wrote:
>
> That's interesting, because I have compared the Lanczos filter in Irfanview
> and ImageMagick with Photoshop bicubic and bicubic smoother.  In all cases
> where upsampling aspect ratio remained 1:1, Lanczos produce sharper/smoother
> edges and better detail.

I haven't tried this filter but the examples I saw didn't seem to look
any better than what you can get with Photoshop, for example these two
pages using older versions of Photoshop ...

http://www.fredmiranda.com/SI/
http://www.americaswonderlands.com/digital_photo_interpolation.htm

Roger Clark has a page on upsamping using "Adaptive Richardson-Lucy
Iteration" and feels that works the best ... you can download the fox
image snippet and run your software and see if you get something as
good or better ... when I did this using just Photoshop and my normal
three-step workflow (which includes two sharpening passes) that I use
for printing Roger thought it looked about as good what he gets with
R-L, except instead of taking 90 minutes to run I could do it in 3
minutes ... at any rate if you can beat his example Roger would like to
see it.  This is useful info because it's a standardized image.
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/image-restoration1/index.html

Note that different methods might give better or worse results
depending on the image (and the operator if sharpening is included).
For example here's a test (by someone selling GF, just as the guy
selling a Stair Interpolation action came up with an image that looks
good upsized using SI) that shows GF is better than Photoshop, at least
for this image ... http://www.inkjetart.com/news/gf/ ... but it's
irrelevant to me because they rasterized a vector image and then ran
the tests and none of my images are vector-like images.  Few photos
are.

Bill
AAvK - 23 Sep 2006 11:35 GMT
> I haven't tried this filter but the examples I saw didn't seem to look
> any better than what you can get with Photoshop, for example these two
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
> Bill

That last link is very old by a few years.  GF is now owned by OnOne
software and it's version 4, no saving stn files anymore.  And it goes
up to 800%.

But thanks for the Clarkvision link, don't want to spend more money
these days.  Currently I have GF 2.5 and have happily used it since I
bought it, with perfect results.

Because of this thread I tested CS1's bicubic work for both sharper
and smoother against GF 2.5 as follows:

800 x 600 x 72ppi  to  4800 x 3600 x 300ppi (600% up)

I had never tested this before since PS 5, and was quite pleasently
surprized!  PS's BC smoother is perfect.  Should I upgrade GF for
$69?  Maybe not!

Signature

}<)))*>  Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

Bill Tuthill - 23 Sep 2006 20:27 GMT
>> ... I have compared the Lanczos filter in Irfanview and ImageMagick
>> with Photoshop bicubic and bicubic smoother.  In all cases where
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> http://www.fredmiranda.com/SI/
> http://www.americaswonderlands.com/digital_photo_interpolation.htm

Fred Miranda has something to sell (stairstep) and the other page
is good but the images aren't similar to what I shoot.

I'm not saying Lanczos is the best upsampling filter-- Qimage and
SARS are better-- but Lanczos might be the best downsampling filter.  
Here are samples showing its improvement over PS Bicubic Sharper.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00E7py

The reason I mention Lanczos is that it's free, which is somthing
you can't say for Photoshop Bicubic Smoother.  And IMO (although
opinions are subjective) Lanczos is enough of an improvement over PsBS
to be worth downloading and using despite its non-plugin status.

> Roger Clark has a page on upsamping using "Adaptive Richardson-Lucy
> Iteration" and feels that works the best ... you can download the fox
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> see it.  This is useful info because it's a standardized image.
> http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/image-restoration1/index.html

Thanks for the URL, which I had not seen before.  I'll study it.

> Note that different methods might give better or worse results
> depending on the image (and the operator if sharpening is included).

Yes, certainly true.
cjcampbell - 22 Sep 2006 03:45 GMT
> Hi Everyone
> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Thanks & Regards
> Pte

I am using SizeFixer. There seems to be some improvement using this
program.
Gea - 30 Sep 2006 08:24 GMT
Please try Apophysis , its a free download
this is from my art group and the link ought to get you there

http://apophysis.deviantart.com/
best wishes

Gea

>> Hi Everyone
>> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> I am using SizeFixer. There seems to be some improvement using this
> program.
cjcampbell - 30 Sep 2006 08:42 GMT
> Please try Apophysis , its a free download
> this is from my art group and the link ought to get you there
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Gea

It appears to be a Windows program having nothing to do with
photography.

Serious artists use Macs. :-)
Stewy - 30 Sep 2006 12:17 GMT
> > Please try Apophysis , its a free download
> > this is from my art group and the link ought to get you there
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> Serious artists use Macs. :-)

Bloomin' heck! I'm finally a serious artist. Banzai!
cjcampbell - 02 Oct 2006 01:43 GMT
> > > Please try Apophysis , its a free download
> > > this is from my art group and the link ought to get you there
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Bloomin' heck! I'm finally a serious artist. Banzai!

Having a Mac is only the first step. In order to be a truly serious
artist you have to smell bad, dress badly, wear a bizarre hairstyle, be
addicted to drugs or alcohol or both, be on the run from the law,
suffer from at least one sexually transmitted disease, have several
children out of wedlock despite being a homosexual, prefer to work in
artistic media such as urine and human excrement, blame all your
problems on America, claim that nobody understands your work (and be
right), and suffer from psychoses such as schizophrenia or paranaoia or
preferably both.

Personally, I prefer to simply use a Mac, although paranoia seems
attractive at times. :-)
AAvK - 02 Oct 2006 21:05 GMT
> Having a Mac is only the first step. In order to be a truly serious
> artist you have to smell bad, dress badly, wear a bizarre hairstyle, be
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Personally, I prefer to simply use a Mac, although paranoia seems
> attractive at times. :-)

Sounds about "close" to exactly me, AND I work on XP. No queer though, no kids,
no "sex sickness", and no pee or sh.t either. lmfao!
Alex
AAvK - 02 Oct 2006 21:11 GMT
> Please try Apophysis , its a free download
> this is from my art group and the link ought to get you there
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Gea

This thread has to do with digitaly up-sizing images without pixelation
problems.  You can get a clear reading about it on the product page here:
http://www.ononesoftware.com/ ... though there are other resources
that have been mentioned in this thread.  For you, this might be a good
idea to attain printing size perfection for yourself, and you fractal art.

Signature

}<)))*>  Giant_Alex
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

cjcampbell - 22 Sep 2006 03:45 GMT
> Hi Everyone
> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Thanks & Regards
> Pte

I am using SizeFixer. There seems to be some improvement using this
program.
Hebee Jeebes - 22 Sep 2006 08:26 GMT
No program can create data or detail that isn't there. I don't care what the
marketing monkeys tell you. BTW Alien Skin Blow Up is a bit better than GF.
Not that I want either one of them.

R

> Hi Everyone
> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> Thanks & Regards
> Pte
David Ruether - 22 Sep 2006 15:16 GMT
> Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals plug-in for photoshop? I bought the
> 3.0LE version a couple of years ago but have never got it to work as
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> Thanks & Regards
> Pte

I've used GF (Anyone want the "light" and heavy" versions? - That
should tell you something...;-) and was impressed with the results
until I tried up-sizing in Micrographyx Picture Publisher, and it did
about as well.
--
David Ruether
ruether@verizon.net
rpn1@cornell.edu
http://www.ferrario.com/ruether
 
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