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I just discovered a new standalone/plug-in that relieves (but doesn't entirely eliminate) the perrenial, thorny problem of blowing up an image.
Okay, as we know, it's not that hard to decrease the pixel count of an image--you knock pixels out of an image when the you decrease the saved file size, and the host program reassigns the remaining pixels color values that are an average of the deleted and remaining pixels.
Various programs do this with varying amounts of finesse. Photoshop does this well because it employs Bicubic interpolation plus some subtle edge sharpening.
Fine. But it's next to impossible to enlarge an image, because you're telling the application to add pixels, the application is dumb and not an artist, and the calculations lead to some pretty ugly and pixellated work!
So along comes Real Fractals, and they use fractal algorythms to "fake" the additional detail. I have a personal case against Real Fractals, because their rep two years ago was very rude to me. But putting that aside, I don't think Real Fractals cuts it, because the resulting image is not really any better, aesthetically, than if you enlarge an image, and then use the Dry Brush PS filter on it, and blend the resulting layers.
PhotoZoom, IMO, is an improvement over Real Fractals. It's Mac and Win,
...and a tad pricey at $129 MSRP. But here's a small example of what it can do...a photo enlarged to 300% of the original, in PS, and then using PhotoZoom on the same base image.
Anybody else have a new or old favorite plug-in?
Write about it on this thread!
Well I'm sold! Thanks Gare. Most of my imaging isn't built of photographs so I was interested how well a serious size increase would work on a file which had was completely generated by computer. My test was a piece I'd done in Xara 3D 6 and saved as a BMP file. The original was 1024 X 768 with a 96dpi resolution. I blew it up by increasing the resolution to 600dpi. Here is a sample taken from the image blown up via PhotoZoom using the s-spline algorithm next to a crop from the same image uprezzed in PS using bicubic sharper.
I'm sold and I had given up Real Fractals in favor of Photoshop native algorithms after PS 7.
You run System 10, right? Do you have a separate PC under which you run XARA 3D, or are you running it under PC emulation?
The reason I ask, is that I'm running PearPC, and Panther on my notebook (not to worry; I added lots of RAM and a large HD)--which is fine, but...
I'm doing this to be able to run PIXAR ShowPlace and RenderMan, which the folks at PIXAR gifted me with years ago, and ran fine on my PPC 8500, which is now defunct. Problem is, Showplace is looking for System 9 (Classic), and I've got System 9.2.1 on CD, but apparently, Pear PC won't run it.
Any suggestions? I've already subscribed to the PearPC and System9forever forums.
I tried Virtual PC and XP Home to run Xara X and Xara3D (because I was enthralled by your Xara work). After using it for a while I decided emulation was marginal and I would be better off getting a modest PC so I got a refurb eMachine with a pretty fast AMD?processor, put a fair video card and a gig of RAM and had $500 in it. It's a great little machine and, by comparison, Virtual PC was a waste of time.
Well, enough of that. To your question.
I'm sure you know that OS X can run OS 9 applications under an emulation built into the operating system. It's called Classic and requires a valid OS 9 system folder to run. I've never run PearPC but I have a sneaking hunch that you may be in a classic Catch 22. In order to run a 9.2.1 install disk, OS X has to launch in Classic to run the installer which means you have to have an OS 9 system folder on your hard drive already.
I have one possible solution given your resources at hand. On your OS9.2.1 install disk will be a folder named System Folder. That is a very stripped down System Folder which is just enough to boot a Mac from the CD and then run the installer. If you drag/copied that System Folder to your hard drive, renamed it OS9 System Folder, and you placed it in your OS X installation (if you look at an OS X Finder window in Column view, you would place it in the second column with Applications, Library, System, Users...the root level) OS X might recognize it as a valid system folder. You could find out by going to the Apple Menu > System Preferences > Classic. When the Classic pref pane launched it would try to find a useful system folder. If it recognized the drag copy, potentially you could launch Classic using that system folder and then run the OS 9 installation application. Once done, you would have a complete OS 9 system installed on your system and your could trash the temporary System Folder. Does that make sense?
As I've never done such a thing, it could be a failure but, it's probably worth a try. The only other solution I can think of is to burn a disk image of an OS9 system folder which you could then drag to your hard drive without the installation process being a requirement. I could burn a disk image onto CD which had a pristine OS9 system folder on it, if that would help.
Hey Mark, I knew I should have tried Genuine Fractals too but I would have had to do some rummaging around in the deep dark recesses of old systems to bring it to light once more. I was being lazy. I haven't used it since PS6. I'll go see if I can do that...
I might just cave and buy a MiniMac; they're around $400, I think, and your emulation scheme sounds like the logical one: if you wanna run Mac software, then buy a Mac [innocent]
But thanks for your thorough thoughts; I will indeed try the less cash-intensive method first.
BTW, if you haven't tried Showplace, here's a (poor, rushed) example...
Showplace looks neat. I'm going to take a look see but I'm still quite a ways from having a handle on Xara X due to lack of effort on my part.
The basic Mac Mini lists for pennies under $500 and adding extra RAM (a must in my book) ups the ante at least $75. Don't let Apple add it, they charge a fortune. You can buy it from somebody like Coast-to-Coast memory for cheap and install it yourself. The Mini is supposedly awkward to upgrade but the secret is you use a 1" bladed putty knife to pop off the case. (That's even the official Apple tool of choice!) There are good visual tutorials on Mini upgrades on the internet. Frankly the Mini is a great deal. I've thought about getting a couple of them for a cheapo render farm. :B
theKeeper,
Here's the same test with Genuine Fractals thrown in. There is a newer version of GF which theoretically should be better but... frankly I'm going to get PhotoZoom as my next software purchase.
Am I missing something here? Why are you guys saying that PhotoZoom is your plug-in choice for sharpening when, to me anyway, it looks like Genuine Fractals is the clear winner. The other two look out of focus compared to GF. What's up?
Photoshop plug-ins 
Linear Mode
