Genuine Fractals 4.1?

[stovall]

Has anyone tried Genuine Fractals 4.1. They claim you no longer have

to save in the .STN format to use it in photoshop.

 

Anyone tried it? How does it compare to CS2 various upsampling options?

I've been thinking about getting because Alamy suggests using it when

preparing images for them.

[patricklavoie]

to be honest with you, i use to be a big fan of there product for as long i can

remember...when i didnt know how to interpolate a file properly. I have download there

demo, try it at 700%, it was freaking slow on my G5 2x2ghz 4gig of RAM, but the result

was good. So i try my method of resampling, using bicubic smoother in 2 shot, add a bit

of noise, not much just a bit, sharpen this image with the high pass technique ( way better

than a multiple of other way, including third parties plug in ) pretty fast too to get the

result...Talking about the result, it was so close between those 2 file that i decide to do my

test with differents shot using the same %, in the end my method was co close to Fractal,

and i was getting the result so fast compare to it, that i decide to keep doing it with CS. its

free, faster, easier and i get the same result when i blow my image to see it up close. I

personaly think that if you know how to do BW, Sharpen, Interpolation and everything else

in CS you dont need those fancy expensive plug in to do it for you.

[kirk_thompson]

Right - it now works as a PS plug-in on .psd & other kinds of files.

 

I haven't tried Patrick's personal resing & sharpening method, but I doubt there's one best

way. You're working with a complex system & results depend on a bunch of variables -

camera's sensor, shooting mode, sharpening tools, etc., all the way to print size.

 

In the ballpark of 20D & 5D RAW files used with Photokit Sharpener (Capture & Output), I

concluded that GF is a lot better than Bicubic Smoother, if you're printing medium-to-

large. The differences aren't obvious in full-frame prints on A3 paper, but become

increasingly so as you go up to 17x22" paper. YMMV, if you aren't starting with these

kinds of files & tools. You really have to experiment with your own system.

 

IMO it's only if you use a Mac (as I do) that it's worthwhile to experiment with GF. PC

people seem to get better, & certainly faster, results with QImage. (No Mac version of

QImage - too bad.)

 

GF is really slow, so you have to change from 16 bit to 8 before using it, or else go out to

lunch while it works on the larger files. (Changing to 8 bit has no effect on tonalities when

your'e that close to the final print, because the printer was going to convert to 8-bit

anyway.)

[kahheng]

Patrick

 

No offence but you're still speaking pretty nebulously.

 

How about more specifics, say beginning from a file of X x Y pixels, you did, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, etc......

 

Regards

[Spearhead]

I bought some earlier version and had a problem. I spent three days calling them, and kept getting stupid voice mail. I emailed them over and over and got nothing. Given that I had a job, that was it. There is no new version that will fix their complete and total lack of interest in customer support. Buy from companies that respond to customers.

[stevierose]

I agree with Jeff, however, Genuine Fractals has been taken over by a new and different company called On One Software. I don't know if their customer service is any better as I have no tried it yet.