Quality bitmap enlarging programs?

[mmblarg]

Hey all! So we all know that you can't add quality to a terrible image but clients give us low res images time and time again. For us, when a client doesn't want to alter the image (no sharpening and film grain funness) our only options have been to pick the lesser or evils and either leave the pixilation or blur the image. Recently I came across a suggestion in the forums to try out On1 Perfect Resize program for enlarging small and medium images for larger format printing and gave it a try since they have a free trial. (I'll see if I can attach the results) I was fairly pleased with the look but it does create a sort of palette knife texture to compensate for the low resolution.

I was curious if anyone uses other programs that can do an even better job.

***Edit*** the attachments don't do the program justice... blast

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

I used Photozoom that works great most of the times.

 

[Kwiksigns]

on1 is the best i have used. Photozoom is good as well but I prefer the on1 program. I had it as a plugin but I got the standalone one because i like it better not having to go through photoshop to use it.

SmillaEnlarger is free... never used it.
Alien Skin had one called Blow Up. That one is good too.

 

[mmblarg]

I'll probably avoid Photozoom, only because it is more expensive for roughly the same quality. I'll research the others as well though!

 

[jfiscus]

Ther are a few different options you can try using OnOne's Perfect Resize. Sometimes the final outcome does come out looking a bit "painted", but that is it trying its hardest to enlarge the square pixels without making everything blocky at the larger resolution.

Original image was 33x7.2 inches at 300 DPI, was resized to 180x81 inches at 72 DPI.(A bit of image stretching done in PS afterwards in sky/water areas to achieve proportions changes)
FWIW, 72 DPI is fine for most instances when printing on PhotoTex.

 

[Johnny Best]

Most photos have a lot of noise in them when enlarged, A good idea is to go into Photoshop and reduce this noise, (you will notice this in the blue sky in the pic above). There are different methods to do this and can be googled to see how the steps are accomplished.
If you have the pic in .NEF (RAW) form it is easy by the using the noise reduction window and luminance slider.

 

[mmblarg]

Most photos have a lot of noise in them when enlarged, A good idea is to go into Photoshop and reduce this noise, (you will notice this in the blue sky in the pic above). There are different methods to do this and can be googled to see how the steps are accomplished.
If you have the pic in .NEF (RAW) form it is easy by the using the noise reduction window and luminance slider.

Ooo! I'll definitely have to test that out! I have one project where the client is using a tiny webpage png of a historic photo... the results... not awesome, but they insist on it. Anything to clean that bad boy up is a massive help!