Perfect Resize

[rpcrowe]

I have often ranted and raved about receiving terrible imagery from our Maltese Rescue California volunteers. Often receiving them in minuscule sizes of less than two inches at the maximum dimension...

I originally purchased Perfect Photo Suite primarily for its Perfect Resize module which was once an independent program, Genuine Fractals. I am very impressed with the ability of Perfect Resize to drastically increase the size of these tiny images and with the ease which the program does this. Perfect Resize also usually results in a better looking image...

To be completely honest, I will not be printing any of these images to hang on my wall but, they are quite usable when resized to a workable size...

I can get a better enlargement of the image that I can using Photoshop. It is likely that more proficient Photoshop manipulators can get the same size increase using that program but, I can't. Additionally, I doubt if the size increase can be done as quickly as in Perfect Resize...

The other modules of Perfect Photo Suite are icing on the cake for me, but they are wonderful icing!

I have a strong suspicion that many of the Photoshop buffs who look down their noses at plug-ins like Perfect Photo Suite and NIK Software would be leading the parade in singing the praises of these capabilities if Photoshop had introduced them as part of its capabilities...

[Bobobird]

Get some sand, blow it into a glass, let it cool, fill it with water, drink the water - happy that you made the glass to drink the water.

Go to the kitchen, grab a glass, fill it with water, drink the water - happy that you drank the water to satisfy your thirst.

[NorthernFocus]

Richard, I also use perfect resize and agree it is very user friendly. I thing the conventional wisdom is that the genuine fractals algorithms begin to outshine the "standard" resizing modes in PS when you go beyond 3x increase in size. But as you said, even at smaller changes the ease of use is nice. The main reason I got it was for adding borders to images for printing gallery wraps. The time saving for that alone justified the purchase for me.

I recently added the rest of the Perfect Photo Suite to use as LR plug-in. Stand alone LR will do about 90 percent of my PP needs. The plug-in layers capability covers the rest. All of the presets that come in the suite are gravy

[Manfred M]

Richard - I bought Perfect Resize some time ago for the same reason. Adobe seems to have really done some significant work on the resize algorithms in Photoshop and things have gotten to the point where I don't bother with Perfect Resize anymore. I see no difference in the image quality.

Back in the days of CS2 and CS3, Photoshop was quite limited in its ability to upsample, but not anymore; CS6 and CC are quite good this way.

[Bobobird]

Is there a specific process to go through for upsizing?

I ask because many years ago it was upsize a little bit, then upsize that a little bit and so on until you got to the size you wanted.. It that still valid nowadays?

[Manfred M]

Is there a specific process to go through for upsizing?

I ask because many years ago it was upsize a little bit, then upsize that a little bit and so on until you got to the size you wanted.. It that still valid nowadays?

The "rule" for Photoshop that I followed was no more than 10% resize, repeated up to three times. After that the resulting softness got too significant. I followed that "rule" right through to CS5. I now go straight to the final size, with CC.

It really depends on the image I am starting out with and the final product I am aiming for. All resizing algorithms use some degree of interpolation, and the fractal approach used by Perfect Resize is just a fairly sophisticated way of doing that.

I find each image has to be judged on a case by case basis.

[Bobobird]

Thanks Manfred. I will have CC up and running soon and will bear your suggestions in mind.

I suppose upsizing is needed for really really large prints? I wonder that if a crop is needed, should that be before or after the resize?

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred. I will have CC up and running soon and will bear your suggestions in mind.

I suppose upsizing is needed for really really large prints? I wonder that if a crop is needed, should that be before or after the resize?

Cropping is generally the last step of my workflow. I find that I want the whole image to work with and will fine tune my crop right at the end. As an example; even if I crop an area out, I may use it for source material to clone from. I do the editing after resizing as there could be artifacts created during the resize operation if done beforehand.

[Bobobird]

Good point. Thanks.