3/17/2023 0 Comments Blow up alienIf you only output letter-sized inkjet prints, most digital cameras can capture enough data for a decent 8″ x 10″ print. Image-resizing software isn’t a must for everyone. You can see that the solid color and defined lines of the image fare well with Blow Up but start to show jagged stair-stepping with Photoshop. I used Blow Up to resize the image on the left and Photoshop’s Bicubic Interpolation to resize the image on the right. I upsampled both of these images 400% from the original. The up-side of Blow Up’s approach is that when you’re dealing with a very graphic image of defined color, such as the race car in Figure 5, the plug-in does a wonderful job of maintaining clean edges.įigure 5. I think the Photoshop artifacts actually make some areas, such as the hair, more pleasing, but you choose. The top image was done in Blow Up, while the bottom image uses Bicubic interpolation in Photoshop. Both of these images were resized from 72dpi to 300dpi. You can see the difference this makes in patterned areas (Figure 4).įigure 4. Blow Up uses a sort of “facet” approach to creating the missing pixels. Of course, upsampling is never as good as the original image in the correct resolution because upsampling involves creating those extra pixels out of nothing. The Sharpen Amount and Add Grain sliders in action: The Add Grain slider creates more realistic, plausible images.įigure 3. At these percentages, upsampling algorithms often make your image appear plastic. The Add Grain slider comes in handy when your enlargement is more than 400 percent. It’s similar to using Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask command, yet Blow Up doesn’t create ugly halos at the higher settings, as can often happen in Photoshop. The Sharpen Amount slider lets you dial in edge sharpening by percentages. The last two interface options are where Blow Up really differentiates itself from Photoshop’s Image Size command (Figure 3). (I highly recommend this, as it’s a non-destructive workflow.) Check the Duplicate Image Before Resizing box if you want to maintain the original image as it was before the upsampling. The rule of thumb is three to four times the images size in available scratch space.Ĭheck Blow Up’s Constrain Proportions box to maintain the relationship of the height to the width as you try different settings. Blow Up has no problems with files that size, but just make sure you have enough storage and scratch disk space. It’s good to realize that a 300 dpi 24″ x 36″ CMYK file will weigh in at a whopping 296.6 MB, and a 36″ x 48″ file will set you back 593.3 MB. Just as in Photoshop, Blow Up shows the new image size in megapixels as you make adjustments. When I produce images for print and know my final output size and desired resolution, I prefer to make the change here and can use inches or point measurements. The interface displays the current image size in pixels, then the document size. If you’ve used the Image Size dialog in Photoshop, you’ll feel right at home.įigure 2. The interface is a smooth, two-windowed affair that’s very easy to learn (Figure 2). Try doing that with other image resizers and you’ll be disappointed! The real joy comes when you resample a layered Photoshop image and don’t lose any layer information. You’ll have to convert GIF files to another format in Photoshop first.) This broad support gives it an advantage over the competition. You reach Blow Up through the File>Automate menu command.īlow Up supports RGB, grayscale, CMYK, LAB, and duotone modes, as well as 8-, 16-, and 32-bit images. Once you install into your plug-ins folder and open an image, you access Blow Up via File>Automate (Figure 1).įigure 1. This cross-platform plug-in works with Photoshop CS and CS2 or Photoshop Elements 3 or above. ![]() Now the fun and friendly Alien Skin Blow Up ($199) has joined the likes of onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals and pxl SmartScale. There have been upsampling plug-ins for years. The best solution is to upsample the image, but not with Photoshop alone. All of these options have their downsides. As for the brochure, you could redesign it without the low-res images, hire a photographer to reshoot, or upsample the images in Photoshop and pray the resulting jaggies aren’t too bad. What now? Your original product shots just don’t have enough information for a 6′ poster. The client’s reply: “That’s all we have.” At the final approval stage, you request the high-resolution images. You’ve laid out the spreads, chosen the typefaces, and placed the client’s FPO images. Here’s another scenario: The brochure you’ve been hired to design is coming along smoothly. Months later, the client calls and wants to make a 6′ trade show graphic from one of the images. Does this sound familiar? You used a high-quality, 10-megapixel SLR to shoot a series of products for an 8-1/2″ x 11″ catalog.
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