By: Erik Vlietinck
Thu, November 24, 2005 - 1:29:01
Pros: 0

Score: ">

Genuine Fractals Print Pro 4.1 is onOne Software‘s Photoshop plug-in that allows you to scale photographs for printed output. The product is claimed to be better than Photoshop’s own bi-cubic feature.

Genuine Fractals is a bit of an odd bird in the Photoshop plug-in category. It doesn’t sit hidden under your Filters menu, but has a menu item of its own. When you select the Genuine Fractals menu item, a fairly large dialogue window opens with easy-to-understand options.

Your task is to fill in the scaling percentage for the image, or the target pixels (inches, cms...) that you want the image to grow. There’s also a cropping tool and a dialogue that enables you to crop the result by the numbers.

When you’ve filled in everything you need, it’s a matter of clicking the OK button and waiting until Genuine Fractals has finished scaling the image. The result is a bigger image with indeed less artefacts or problematic zones than when blown up using Photoshop’s bi-cubic capabilities. 

However, I compared the output with SizeFixer‘s capabilities, and found Genuine Fractals offering less control over the result while SizeFixer manages to retain more detail. Except for the fact that SizeFixer is a stand-alone program, the biggest difference between SizeFixer and Genuine Fractals lies in the technology itself.

SizeFixer is based on NASA-technology and uses your camera’s EXIF data to calculate the end-result. Genuine Fractals interpolates pixels, and does a better job than Photoshop, but it remains a straight interpolation plug-in that just uses the data in the image itself. Still, many people are impressed by Genuine Fractals as witnessed by this Shutterbug review.

Conclusion

Genuine Fractals Print Pro 4.1 does a far better job at scaling an imnage than Photoshop does. It’s easy to use and will appeal to many photographers, both proefessionals and serious amateurs. However, for those who want the ultimate in scalability, SizeFixer XL allows for larger blow-ups at a high quality.