Digital BW, The Print

Very interesting subject.

To me, the question is not only what looks sharper, but also what looks 
more natural. In photography, I've come to accept the limits of film and 
optics as looking "natural". What I'm concerned with, looking at the 
output of Genuine Fractals and Benvista, is that they have an edge 
sharpness that does not seem to correspond to the level of details shown 
within surfaces.

Looking at Paul's samples, I do not see significantly more details in GF 
than I do in CS5 bicubic, though in GF the details, and especially the 
shapes, have significantly sharper outlines. This leads to a look 
comparable to "airbrush with masks", where smooth gradients are abruptly 
stopped by the mask. In other words, GF looks less photographic and more 
illustrative than bicubic does.

What I find really unacceptable though is, if you have a look at the 
Benvista samples on

http://www.benvista.com/photozoompro/examples

and check out the shell still-life: look at that narrow vertical 
highlight on the shell-edge in the lower left corner of the picture. In 
bicubic you can see its shading, which gives the edge some 
three-dimensionality. Benvista turns this into an almost uniformly 
white, though very sharp blob, which reminds me of those "artistic" 
watercolor filters in PS.

Of course, all of this is being viewed highly magnified on screen, and 
what really counts is what it looks like in the print, so any valid 
comparison should be done there.


Just my 2 centimes,
Louis
Zurich, Switzerland

(P.S. Paul, let me take the opportunity to warmly thank you for your 
many and always very valuable contributions to this list!)



On 29.10.2010 04:15, Paul wrote:
> (I hope this is not too far off the forum's scope.)
>
> In searching for the best way to make the sharpest print I can, I've taken a quick look at Genuine Fractals re-sizing software.
>
> I think it may do a better job of up-sizing images to 720 dpi for printing than if left to the printer software.
>
> A comparison sample of image files is here:
> http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/GF.jpg
>
>
> In the past I've thought that GF preserves edges better than the alternatives, but I have not done a recent survey of the alternatives.  The GF image in the sample, above, does look better to me than the bicubic method, which is what I'd guess printer software uses.
>
> Paul
> www.PaulRoark.com
>
>
>
>
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