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by bradmangas on Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:36 pm
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I have been using Perfect Resize for the last 5 years or so with great results. My current version is 8.1. Evidently, no more free updates are available for this, but the newest version from ON1 is Resize 2018. I can upgrade for $49 which fine with me. I am wondering if anyone has updated from a previous version to Resize 2018 and if there is really any difference to justify the $49.  

I have always used it as a stand-alone program and everything still works fine, does what I need it to do, just wondering if I may be missing out on some latest advancements in the Genuine Fractals technology. 

I have conducted my own test comparing my version of Perfect Resize to Photoshop when uprezing an image file and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of the file with Perfect Resize producing a better uprezed file.  

I currently use a Nikon D800E and it is not uncommon for me to produced prints up to 40x60 inches and depending on who I have do my printing may need to keep files at 300dpi at that size. I typically will use Perfect Resize whenever I need to make a print larger than the native file size of the D800E which is 20x30 inch at 240dpi.

If there may be a superior image file enlargement software other than from ON1 I would be interested to know about it as well.
 

by Mark Picard on Tue Jul 24, 2018 5:48 pm
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bradmangas wrote:I have been using Perfect Resize for the last 5 years or so with great results. My current version is 8.1. Evidently, no more free updates are available for this, but the newest version from ON1 is Resize 2018. I can upgrade for $49 which fine with me. I am wondering if anyone has updated from a previous version to Resize 2018 and if there is really any difference to justify the $49.  

I have always used it as a stand-alone program and everything still works fine, does what I need it to do, just wondering if I may be missing out on some latest advancements in the Genuine Fractals technology. 

I have conducted my own test comparing my version of Perfect Resize to Photoshop when uprezing an image file and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of the file with Perfect Resize producing a better uprezed file.  

I currently use a Nikon D800E and it is not uncommon for me to produced prints up to 40x60 inches and depending on who I have do my printing may need to keep files at 300dpi at that size. I typically will use Perfect Resize whenever I need to make a print larger than the native file size of the D800E which is 20x30 inch at 240dpi.

If there may be a superior image file enlargement software other than from ON1 I would be interested to know about it as well.
I see that you got no response to your post yet - what you wrote sounds exactly what I would have wrote as I also have been using Perfect Resize for about 8 years now, and I feel the same as you do about it. I'm perfectly happy all these years using it, especially the extra features (canvas borders, mirroring, etc.) which make these steps much faster and easier than doing them in PhotoShop. I haven't updated, but I suspect that you could get a free 15 or 30 day free trial? I'm glad you brought it up as I was not aware there is an update. I'll definitely also look into it when I get off from NSN now. Let us know what you found out (and so will I)!  :)
Mark Picard
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Maine Photography Workshops
 

by Royce Howland on Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:19 pm
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I print professionally, and our shop sets high standards. At the top end of our range we target national and international museums & archives as well as public & commercial galleries, not to mention demanding artists and enthusiasts producing their own work for sale or personal satisfaction. So that's by way of context.

I personally prefer the results from the enlargement methods available in dedicated RIP software (which is beyond the reach of most individual photographers), and in Qimage (which is dirt cheap by comparison). Qimage started life as a dedicated RIP-like printing application, though in latter years the developer has been busy adding all kinds of editing functions to the app, none of which I use. Even without using Qimage to actually run the print, it can be used as a print-processing tool, writing the output back out to a TIFF. This in turn can be printed through anything else (Photoshop, LR, whatever), with little or no additional print processing being done after the work Qimage does. Considering its purchase price, it's a high value application for anyone doing serious print work.

I can usually spot the Perfect Resize files that come into the shop right away. They typically contain a type of fractal-like digital artifact pattern (hence the original name, Genuine Fractals). It's not to my personal taste, especially when used to really push the enlargement scale way up. We don't use this tool at all in our workflow which regularly involves prints as large as modern Epson & Canon photographic inkjets can produce -- 60" wide by however long. But other folks like the look of GF / Perfect Resize, so we do print those files when the client has chosen to use that tool in their workflow.

Like most good tools that can be dialed up & down in the intensity of their effects, I'm sure Perfect Resize can be controlled to have less of the look that I find objectionable. So it's possible I'm mainly recognizing the files where it has been dialed up, and perhaps there are cases where its effects are more subtly applied that are slipping by me. ;) Still, I prefer the look that Qimage delivers, combined with not overly sharpening things in the post-interpolation stage. Over-sharpening is part of what I don't like about the GF look, although of course sharpening can be controlled for separately if one wished to do so rather than just cranking it hard.

I haven't looked at GF since it became On1 Perfect Resize. Probably I should check it out one of these days and see if their technology has progressed in a meaningful way. At a minimum I might be able to better advise our clients on its effective use...
Royce Howland
 

by Wildflower-nut on Wed Jul 25, 2018 7:58 am
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Apparently there is qimage 1 and qimage ultimate. Which is what you are using?
 

by Royce Howland on Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:27 pm
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I've used Qimage forever, which morphed into Qimage Ultimate with the addition of all the editing tools that I don't really care about. Qimage 1 is a relatively new thing, developed jointly by Qimage author Mike Chaney and another outfit with the explicit purpose of having cross-platform support for both Windows and Mac for the first time ever. (Chaney previously was Windows only 100%.) Qimage 1 is very cut-down in its feature set so I haven't bothered to look at it yet, but possibly it would be enough to do the kind of thing like we're discussing in this thread, and obviously be the app to run the print as well if one was so inclined.
Royce Howland
 

by bradmangas on Fri Jul 27, 2018 3:12 pm
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Thank you Mark and Royce for your replies.
Royce I really appreciate the professional insight into this subject. I will be checking out Qimage.
 

by Charlie Woodrich on Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:08 am
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I must be looking at the wrong website.  All I see is Qimage 1.  I'm not seeing Qimage Ultimate.
 

by signgrap on Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:20 pm
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Try this: http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/
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by Rocky Sharwell on Thu Aug 16, 2018 2:44 pm
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Just got an email from Topaz Labs for their new enlarging software -A.I. Gigapixel. It might be of interest to some in this thread...
Rocky Sharwell
 

by E.J. Peiker on Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:33 pm
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Rocky Sharwell wrote:Just got an email from Topaz Labs for their new enlarging software -A.I. Gigapixel. It might be of interest  to some in this thread...
Some early results and review...
http://plugsandpixels.com/blog/new-topaz-ai-gigapixel-upsampling-app-w-unadvertised-discount/
 

by DOglesby on Thu Aug 16, 2018 11:18 pm
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That looks promising.
Cheers,
Doug
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Aug 21, 2018 4:10 pm
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AI Gigapixel is next level folks - mind blowing! I can take old 4 megapixel images and make them look at least like 16 megapixel images without any noise added or any apparent loss of detail or aliasing. Makes the On 1 product, formerly Genuine Fractals or Photoshop upsampling look like something from last century (which they are).
 

by photokirk on Thu Mar 07, 2019 2:26 am
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Topaz AI Gigapixel does an excellent job when compared to enlargement using photoshop. The AI part does the trick I guess, minimal amplification of noise with better details. There is a comparison done with photoshop enlargement also. You can find it below:

https://www.photographyaxis.com/post-pr ... el-review/
 

by Royce Howland on Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:47 am
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I recently used Topaz AI Gigapixel on a couple of challenging image enlargements where my usual approaches (including Qimage) couldn't cut it for the level of print enlargement the clients wanted. One example was making a 4 foot-square print from a 4 MP iPhone shot. :)

In short, AI Gigapixel did a far better job than I have seen out of anything else. Now -- obviously there's no way to simply enlarge a 4 MP file to that extent and think the results look like natural photographic detail. But the ability of AIG to extrapolate the natural tones, textures and details so that they looked reasonable from an appropriate viewing distance was really quite impressive. It also lacked much of the objectionable artifacts I've seen in the past with other enlargement software. I'm not that much a fan of how Perfect Resize enlargements look when done at this scale, for example.

The main issue I ran into was some hair-thin, short horizontal lines introduced into the upsized image. They looked like tone mismatches on the boundaries of what I presume are tiled areas that the software subdivides the image into during its processing. I had to heal these lines out manually. Hopefully that can be corrected. I would also like a way to dial back high-contrast edge sharpening a little more, since even at the lowest settings they look too hard & "clean" compared to low-contrast edges.

Those minor issues notwithstanding, AI Gigapixel is now in my toolbox. Recommended!
Royce Howland
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Mar 10, 2019 1:21 pm
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I find that it is at it's best with a custom 150% enlargement or 200% - things get a bit more dicey if you go larger but still MUCH better than anything that came before.
 

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