Alientools worth it?

[blackicefx]

Is the DigitalJuice Alientools plugin for Photoshop worth the price? I now need to have a program or plugin that allows me to cleanly enlarge photos and graphics without artifacts or pixelation. Is the DJ plugin worth the price? Or is Digital Fractals better?

Matthew
BlackIceFX

This is for a VersaCamm SP300v, so I'm not worried about photo quality but I'd prefer as clean as possible.

 

[flyinhawaiian968]

I have Alien Skin's Blowup plugin, it works great for taking low-res files and getting something usable out of most of them. Well worth the money if you ask me...

Chris

 

[pacmn]

I use genuine fractals and get some really good results never used anything else

 

[blackicefx]

are you two using these programs/plug ins for wrap designs? i basically mean anything over 4ft in width or height?

bump for more replies or opinions... preferably from people who have used both.

Matthew
BlackIceFX

 

[os101king]

Been thinking about Blow-Up, you can get it from Digital Juice (dot com) and they have crazy specials from time to time. It really works that well, does it?

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

The only thing I been using is Photo Zoom, works great for making small pictures into large ones for vehicle wraps and such.

 

[flyinhawaiian968]

Been thinking about Blow-Up, you can get it from Digital Juice (dot com) and they have crazy specials from time to time. It really works that well, does it?

Better than the others I've tried, including Genuine Fractals. Not nearly as many controls as GF, but it still does a great job for blowing up images for larger prints.

And yes, I've used it for a wrap once before, it worked quite well to get just a bit more resolution from the image (which was pretty decent to start with).

It all depends on what you're putting into the plugin. If its pretty decent art, it will do a good job, but if its garbage, you'll just end up with a lot larger piece of garbage!

Try the trial version, it will give you the opportunity to see what it can do for you before you spend your money. I tried both programs and felt Blow Up was just a bit better, easier to work with and a whole lot less crap installed on my system.

Chris

 

[ChiknNutz]

I've used PhotoZoom Pro with great results.

 

[njsigns]

Another vote for Photozoom here - - I haven't tried the others...

Gene

 

[os101king]

Better than the others I've tried, including Genuine Fractals. Not nearly as many controls as GF, but it still does a great job for blowing up images for larger prints.

And yes, I've used it for a wrap once before, it worked quite well to get just a bit more resolution from the image (which was pretty decent to start with).

It all depends on what you're putting into the plugin. If its pretty decent art, it will do a good job, but if its garbage, you'll just end up with a lot larger piece of garbage!

Try the trial version, it will give you the opportunity to see what it can do for you before you spend your money. I tried both programs and felt Blow Up was just a bit better, easier to work with and a whole lot less crap installed on my system.

Chris

so, just to clarify. Say I have an image that's 3x5 at 300 dpi. Will that "blow-up" to a crisp 3'x5' image at 100dpi? That's my big question, the actual, not theoretical application of the program. It's kind of hard to understand the real results without hearing (or seeing) them in real-life (terms).

 

[PartyMatt]

so, just to clarify. Say I have an image that's 3x5 at 300 dpi. Will that "blow-up" to a crisp 3'x5' image at 100dpi? That's my big question, the actual, not theoretical application of the program. It's kind of hard to understand the real results without hearing (or seeing) them in real-life (terms).

I'd say "yes" to that question. You're only blowing up by about 400% (measured in linear pixels). I have used Genuine Fractals to make decent 48"x20" 300dpi prints for store POP signs starting with 5"x2" 300 dpi images. That's close to a 1000% enlargement. I don't know anything about Alientool's gear, but if GF can do 1000%, Alientools can certainly do 400%. Nobody in the software biz is really immensely smarter than everyone else in the field.

The key is to start with a very clean, unprocessed source and do any sharpening after the enlargement. If the source file has already been heavily sharpened, or contains a lot of compression artifacts the software will misinterpret it as actual detail and blow up the crap along with the good.

Occasionally I've needed to blow up an image to some larger, but editable, size and use Photoshop to clean things up a bit before the final enlargement. Say a 250% enlargement, then a clean up, then a final 400% enlargement. If you blow it up to final print size first the file is often so huge its a real chore to edit unless you have god's own computer. I've used this two-stage technique to make enlargements nearly 2000% -- from 5"x2" 150dpi to 48"x20" 300dpi . The results are nothing I'd want to hang in an art gallery but if you stand back 3 or 4 feet it looks OK.

 

[IVIilkman]

I use BlowUP Also. Nothing Bad to say about it.

 

[Checkers]

A 300 dpi 3 x 5 is mathematically the same size as a 100 dpi 9 x 15. You don't need special image resizing software to make that change in resolution. A few simple clicks in your design software and it can handle the change.
If you wanted to go much larger (3x or more) than 9 x 15 and still maintain 100 dpi, Photoshop and Photopaint may work, and almost any of the image interpolation software will do the trick. However, as it was pointed out, garbage in garbage out.
Also, there is a limit to how much larger you can go, but it depends on the image itself.
I've used Genuine Fractals and haven’t had the need for anything else.

Checkers