Genuine Fractals - Opinions? - DPChallenge Forums

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon

05/30/2005 08:19:41 AM · #1

Hey,
Does anyone here have any actual user experience with genuine fractals? If you've actually used it yourself, in your opinion, does it work OK, good, great, unbelievably well? Their info on their web site sounds good, but looking for some input besides the sales hype. Thanks for any opinions!

Doug

Kavey

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

05/30/2005 08:27:15 AM · #2

I think it's god-like!

KevinRiggs

Canon EOS-1Ds

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

05/30/2005 08:37:58 AM · #3

I owned ver 3 and recently upgraded to ver 4. Its never failed to impress me how good the quality of the enlargements are.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

05/30/2005 08:47:59 AM · #4

KevinRiggs, thanks for the input, that's exactly what I'm looking for!

Kavey, can I ask what version you've used? 3? 4? Earlier?

Thanks!

Doug

EddyG

Canon EOS-1D Mark II

05/30/2005 09:18:11 AM · #5

I like Qimage for upsizing. And it is pretty affordable too, at $44.95.

A visual comparison of various resizing algorithms available here. (Newer programs/updates are towards the bottom.) Although there are no samples of Genuine Fractals 4.0, notice at the top it says "Genuine Fractals 3.5 is now available. Test results using the 8 bit test images below showed no noticeable differences from 3.0. The benefit of 3.5 over 3.0 is support for 16 bit images. Genuine Fractals 4.0 is out. The interpolation algorithm remains the same. The difference between 3.5 and 4.0 is improvements in workflow." So the GF 3.0 samples should still be a good indicator of how the latest version of GF would also look.

Message edited by author 2005-05-30 09:22:50.

Kavey

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon

05/30/2005 09:45:11 AM · #6

We have 4.0 running on Photoshop CS.

slindenman

Nikon D300

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED

05/30/2005 09:50:32 AM · #7

An alternative to Genuine Fractals is to use Photoshop CS's bicubic smoother. It works VERY well and I think it rivals GF. They say that you can rez up in one shot, but I usually raise in steps (10-15% increments at a time)

Try it before you buy GF.

Message edited by author 2005-05-30 09:53:16.

ganders

Canon EOS-40D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

05/30/2005 10:20:08 AM · #8

Originally posted by slindenman:

Hmm... I'd question how good a simple bicubic resize is past a certain point - however, you can try GF before you buy it too, they have a use-limited demo available.

It certainly convinced me :)

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

05/30/2005 10:34:45 AM · #9

Originally posted by ganders:

Originally posted by slindenman:
An alternative to Genuine Fractals is to use Photoshop CS's bicubic smoother. It works VERY well and I think it rivals GF. They say that you can rez up in one shot, but I usually raise in steps (10-15% increments at a time)

Try it before you buy GF.

Hmm... I'd question how good a simple bicubic resize is past a certain point - however, you can try GF before you buy it too, they have a use-limited demo available.

It certainly convinced me :)

It's not the "simple bicubic" algorithm being referenced here -- since version 8/CS, Photoshop has included two new algorithms -- Bicubic Sharper and Bicubic Smoother -- which are supposed to be much more effective than the old Bicubic.

05/30/2005 10:39:45 AM · #10

Hey all, thanks for the input.

I've tried photoshops bicubic interpolator, in all 3 flavors, smooth, normal, and sharp. I was not all that impressed with them, that's why I was wondering about GF. Not to say the bigger versions from photoshop were BAD, just that I thought they could be BETTER some. But they certainly looked good. I was just exploring anything better out there. I'm trying to upsize about 180%, and I did it in steps of 110% until I got there.

When you guys upsize something significantly like this, do you usually run it thru a noise reduction program like NeatImage first? Or after it's upsized? Or both before AND after? I forgot to use my NeatImage on it at all, and was wondering if that might have been part of why I was disappointed with the photoshop bicubic resize... I'm going to go back and do my test again with NI to see if it makes a difference...

That said, I went to the link provided by EddyG showing the different upsizing algorithms, and I have to say that I was not all that impressed by GF or Qimage versus the bicubics either... But perhaps that was because they were blowing stuff up about 600% with GF (and all the others there). So maybe for my "small" 180% increase, GF or Qimage would do a fantastic job. GF looks like it divided things in to "regions", rather than individual pixels. It looked more "blocky" if you know what I mean...

One other question, GF says on their web site that it only works with photoshop CS, not yet with photoshop CS2. So from that I take it that it is a photoshop pluggin, and does NOT run as a standalone program? Is that correct?

Thanks again for all the valuable input guys!

moodville

Nikon D100

05/30/2005 10:55:01 AM · #11

I tried GF the other day to try and get them up at 48mb and I have to say that at 100% they looked pretty awful. Is that normal or did I just do something really terrible? Of course 100% straight out of the cam dont look great either but with GF it looks like I used a bad PS watercolor effect or something.

Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC for Canon

05/30/2005 10:58:04 AM · #12

moodville, yeah, that's exactly what someone else here said when looking at the samples from EddyG's site, that the GF ones looked like "watercolors". Could I ask you what % you were trying to scale yours up? I'm trying to get about 180% upsizing. If you were in that same ballpark, that would be most interesting to me. Thanks.

Doug

Kavey

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

05/30/2005 10:59:57 AM · #13

I have been sizing images taken on a Nikon D70 up to 48 MB too and not had any problems but... upsampling is very unforgiving.

It might be down to problems with the original - sometimes colour noise isn't such a big deal at native size but is really obvious once upsampled.

I'm not neatimaging (before or after) nor am I applying any sharpening so I'm yet to see whether Alamy find the results acceptable but I'm happy with most of mine. There have definitely been some that I've scrapped though as the upsizing has made flaws in the original much too obvious.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

05/30/2005 11:36:55 AM · #14

Originally posted by moodville:

Of course 100% straight out of the cam dont look great either ...

Since upsizing involves creating new pixels based on the values of the existing ones, it is imperitive that photos you plan to scale up be as sharp and noise free as possible, because otherwise all the noise and defects are what's used to create the new pixels. Never is the programmer's motto of GIGO more applicable than to upsampling an image.

Therefore, it also makes sense to use noise-reduction first. Whether you need to use it later depends on the results of your processing, you have to look at it : )

If you are using GF, there should be no reason to use the step-interpolation method; you buy the program to avoid that.

AFAIK, GF is available as both a plug-in and as a standalone program.

gloda

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/30/2005 11:47:32 AM · #15

What does GIGO stand for?

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

05/30/2005 11:49:01 AM · #16

Originally posted by gloda:

What does GIGO stand for?

Old computer programmer's adage-- Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S21, S21+, S21 Ultra

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

05/30/2005 11:49:06 AM · #17

Fred Miranda (www.fredmiranda.com) sells Stair Interpolator and Resize Pro. I have been using SI Pro for some time now and it is stunningly good at a small fraction of the cost of GF. Resize pro is supposed to be even better, but it's camera-specific with profiles for various dSLR mnodels, and I don't have one of those, so...

The reason I went the Fred Miranda route is that I saw quite a few reviews saying the same thing: that FM's interpolation route using PS bicubic actually produced better results than GF. I saw samples that convinced me. I've been happy with the choice I made.

Robt.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/30/2005 11:53:13 AM · #18

Thanks for the info GeneralE. Yeah, after I was done I did a "DOH, I should have NeatImaged first!" thing. :-) I'll go try it again after doing that. Don't know if it will make much of a difference, as what I was a little disappointed with in PS's upsizing was the "softness" rather than noise. But it can't hurt, right? :-)

But if GF will do a BETTER job than PS by itself, I'd like to do that instead. So I was just wondering if GF was worth the extra cost... The examples of GF on EddyG's link didn't look soft (a good thing), but they looked "blocky" to me (a bad thing). Others have called them a "watercolor" effect...

I think I'm going to try GF's download trial to see how it works for me. If it's good, I'll get it.

GIGO = Garbge In, Garbage Out.

Doug

dwterry

Canon EOS-1D Mark III

05/30/2005 12:08:42 PM · #19

Originally posted by bear_music:

I've used SI for a long time as well. I recently bought his new Resize Pro, but to be honest, I think I still prefer SI. I don't know why Resize Pro is camera-specific either. I was expecting it would somehow be much better than SI but when I compare side by side enlargements, I keep leaning towards SI.

Resusit8u

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

05/30/2005 12:24:18 PM · #20

I have both GF and Fred Miranda's SI. In side by side comparison, I prefer SI, wish I would have known about it before I purchased GF I could have saved a lot of money.

Message edited by author 2005-05-30 12:24:47.

05/30/2005 12:26:05 PM · #21

bear_music and dwterry,

I just went and looked at SI and Resize Pro on fredmiranda, and wow! I have to say that the examples of resize pro for my camera at 200% (and I'm going to 180% so that's real close...) looked far better than the PS CS examples they had. They didn't have any GF examples, but for the price difference they looked good enough I just went ahead and bought resize pro!

I also downloaded the GF trial demo. I'll give them both a try and see which one I like better tonight if I can. But GF will have to be a WHOLE LOT better than resize pro in order to justify the $130 price difference!

Thanks a whole bunch for pointing that software out to me bear_music! You probably just saved me $130!! :-)

Doug

05/30/2005 12:30:19 PM · #22

Resusit8u, thanks for that input. Glad I'm trying resize pro before buying GF!

In their examples on fredmiranda, resize pro looked just a touch better than SI to me. But hard to tell when comparing differnet photos etc in the two examples... But hey, I can get BOTH resize pro and SI and still save money over GF is I end up wanting to try SI in addition to resize pro... :-)

[corrected typo...]

Message edited by author 2005-05-30 12:52:08.

Resusit8u

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

05/30/2005 12:49:32 PM · #23

I just purchased a few other plug-ins from Fred Miranda, if you put "springfever" in the code box, you can get a 10% discount on your purchase. Hope you like Resize Pro.