I don’t own a copy of the program nor have I interfaced with it from a production standpoint. However, I did see this product at the Seybold Seminar, February 2000, in Boston, MA. If I remember correctly, it was a relatively new product (~1997) at the time and getting more exposure by the day. In fact, I believe they were in Adobe’s partner pavilion. (Affordable way for new startups to get exposure at large shows.)
I spent maybe 15 minutes with a gentleman doing a demo and reviewing the product. I was very impressed with what I saw and thought the price was very reasonable for what it could deliver. (under $200.00 at the time I think) I don’t remember the details about the demo file, but it was a fairly small picture of an older car with chrome headlight trim. This guy increased the file size to some unheard of percentage and printed it out. You could actually see the photographer and surrounding area reflected in the chrome trim. The file, in its standard size, barley represented the chrome trim let alone the detail within the trim.
One of those products that I didn’t have an immediate need for, but have not forgotten about either. I would attempt to find someone that has the program to get positive/negative feedback and consult with them to make sure it will work they way you want it to. Perhaps downloading a demo might answer some of those questions as well. Please report back your impressions if you work with the demo or purchase it outright.
Adobe Photoshop and Corel PhotoPaint users can take advantage of this plug-in. Not sure about SignLab?
For those wanting to know a little more about this product, Unleash has a product review available or go to Designer-Info site for another, or go direct to Altamir Group web site for a demo download and product details.
I purchased Corel Gallery 1.3M clipart with the idea of using children's pictures in large format posters.
Problem is, the images are not that big, and even after resampling in Photoshop, I was not happy with the results - very grainey.
I downloaded the evaluation version of Genuine Fractals from Altamira's website last night. It will allow 20 enlargements before it turns off. I shot a 5x7 scanned photograph up to 42" by scale and examined it on the screen. There is no pixelazation as we think of it. We are slammed with July 4 work at the moment, but after the 4th I have a couple of very good test images to shoot up and print.
Punch line is, I think everyone with a large scale printer and Photoshop is going to be interested in this product to some degree.
I hope some of you will do the download and offer your opinions. Vic G
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It works yes and no... It creates small files for large images. But don't expect it to take a 42K JPG image and turn it into a 48" print... It is really good at taking a 180 meg file and saving it in it's own proprietary format to save you hard drive space, but that is the only benefit that I have found so far. Take the same small image and enlarge it in Fractals, and do the same in Photoshop using Bicubic interpolation and the results are the same... Hope that helps...
------------------ Eric Patzer A.S.A.P. Design Lafayette, CO epatzer@earthlink.net
Posts: 208 | From: Lafayette, CO USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I'm bumping this topic back up because I feel like Genuine Fractals is a major discovery for those of you with ink jets, and perhaps even some Edge jobs.
Where's Glenn Taylor when you need him? Glenn! Glenn! Come back Glenn! (or was it Shane?)
Did a test this afternoon. Started out with a 120 dpi image of a childs face. There was pixelization in the eyes that could be seen with a tight zoom. Shot the image up about 10 times. Bicubic resampling in Photoshop just exaggerated the pixels.
Saved the original image in Genuine Fractals format, resampled it up, and saved it as a jpeg bitmap for printing. (Couldn't find a zip disk to save a big file). All the pixelization was gone out of the eyes. The eyes, in fact, were excellent. With the exception of the face, all other parts of the image - hair and bathing suit - rendered better than the original.
Carried it down to the store and printed it out. There are some funny things happening with the flesh tones, but on balance it is still superior to just a resampled image.
Anybody else interested in this? Have a great day! Vic G
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Victor, I agree, it does a much better job than PS as long as you have enought digital info to start with. If you measuring your original in KB and not MB it's not going to be very impressive. However if your starting with a 5-10 MB original it can do amazing things. I took a 5 MB scan, (provided file), up to 54 Mb last week for an Edge job, about 2'x4' at 150 dpi and the relults were outstanding.
------------------ Bill Modzel Mod-Zel screen Printing Traverse city, MI modz@traverse.com
Posts: 1357 | From: Traverse City, MI | Registered: Nov 1998
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I've long had the same thoughts and questions you've got. I've heard some pro's and con's about it, but I've had no personal experience with the program.
I’m heading to Seybold New York 2002 next week and thought perhaps there may be some specific questions you would like me to attempt to get answered about this software. I’m not 100% sure that the software will be represented there but I’ll be ready if they are. (Altimir was acquired by LizardTech and neither company is currently listed as an exhibitor). Past shows have been very educational and well worth the trip and I expect this one to be no different. (It will be my first trip back into the Big Apple post 9/11)
Just as a general side note, I always like to schedule some non-sign, yet related, trade show events and seminars throughout the year. This allows an opportunity to see what’s coming down the road that could possess cross-over implications, pro or con, to the existence of our business. That way I’m not one of those individuals that cries sourgrapes when IT DOES come into our industry. Time would already have been invested to research it and determined is strengths and weakness. A decision would be made on whether to embrace or pass on it before most in our industry even hear about it. Just another example that helps to distinguish myself from the “competition!”
-------------------- Bob Gilliland InKnowVative Communications Harrisburg PA, USA
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 642 | From: Harrisburg, PA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Hello Bob. Thanks for picking up on this topic.
In the above posts, Eric Patzer doesn't see any difference from a bicubic enlargement, and Bill Modzel thinks the product is better than bicubic, but only if you start from a large file.
The little bit of testing I was able to do with the trial download, it looked to me that Genuine fractals did not generate the kind of pixelation that appears in a Photshop enlargement.
We know the product will compress a file like crazy without loss of quality.
So the question is, what can the program do in the context of making a small image large. I don't know how to ask the question any better than that.
I'm told that Epson displayed at San Francisco Seybold an inkjet that will swallow a piece of plywood. You might be on the lookout for that also.
I'm going down to the ISA Western Show in San Diego, but I'm not expecting to see anything radical. Vic G
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA
Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Glenn@telltalesigns.bc.ca
unregistered
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I use the RGB version and am quite happy with it. I do need to upgrade to the CMYK ver. But everything in time. I have been able to do large prints that another service provider could not. (he actually had me produce the prints for him) As far as clipart goes ( digital images ) try Hemera Photo object (www.hemera.com) very nice quality and priced right. Staples and the such carry it on their shelves.
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sort of off topic... Victor said that Epson will be displaying a printer that can swallow a board... There is a printer that a company called (I believe) is called Monster that sells a modified epson 9000 that prints on substrates as thick as 2". This really piqued my curiousity. But what I really wanted to know is most piezo printers can't print on anything other than specially treated media. So I found out that they sell a 'base coat' that you treat the substrate with first! I wanted to get some so I could treat some really thin wood veneer with and run it through my Roland, but they wouldn't sell it to me even at $250 a gallon... Bummers.
-------------------- Eric Patzer A.S.A.P. Design Lafayette, CO epatzer@earthlink.net Posts: 208 | From: Lafayette, CO USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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SONGPAINTER Original Sign Music by Sign People NOW AVAILABLE on CD and the proceeds go to Letterville's favorite charity! Click Here for Sound Clips! Posts: 1974 | From: Orleans, MA, Cape Cod, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Doing a little pre-show research brought to my attention a competing program called VFZoom (standalone or plug-in). Anybody have comments on it?
Just from reading it appears to be faster than GF when decoding (Anybody that uses GF can verify that it does consume some time to increase to a high percentage even with a fast CPU) plus it can add some security as well. Spend the time to “scale up” the image once and then send the same file to multiple vendors with different access privileges tailored to each. No need to “individualize” the image for each vendor. Once and done!
Again, this is all from reading and no first hand experience. I’ll be sure to spend some time bending somebody’s ear in the booth. When asking why chose VFZ over GF I’m willing to bet it will be answered in this order: faster operation, lower cost, and security.
Info on VFZoom can be found on the company web site; celartem.com (Celartem Technology Inc., formally Digital Publishing Japan Co., Ltd.)
-------------------- Bob Gilliland InKnowVative Communications Harrisburg PA, USA
"The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." Benjamin Franklin Posts: 642 | From: Harrisburg, PA, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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