1- The photograph was taken with a D200
and the new Nikon 105mm f2.8 Macro VR.
2- The photograph was taken hand held with
VR on.
3- I compared 3 methods: The first was PS
CS3 using bicubic smoother. The second was Alien Skin Blow-Up (latest version).
The third was Genuine Fractals 5.
4- I selected a 60" (5 feet) uprezing at
240 dpi, the preferred rez for my Epson printer. This would be a HUGE print.
Final print (and samples) had USM of .4 at 150% and 0.
5- Bicubic smoother took
1.5 seconds (I have an
extremely fast computer). Blow-Up took 62
seconds. Genuine
Fractals took 45 seconds.
6- I could detect very little differences
at 100%. Even at 200% some differences were observed with a slight
preference going to bicubic smoother. A small section of this image was cropped,
printed, and compared. I saw zero difference in
the print.
7- Conclusion: Bicubic Smoother was
40 times faster than Blow-Up
and a 5' print would show no difference.
Bicubic Smoother was
30 times faster
than Genuine Fractals and a 5' print would show no difference.
Here are some cropped samples from each.
If you have Photoshop, drag one onto the top of the other as a second layer.
Make sure View - Snap is activated and the top image can be made to snap into
place - exactly. Now simply click the top layer on and off to compare the
images, pixel by pixel if you so desire.
Also. When viewing these
images wait 5-15 seconds for the enlarged version to load. Then
click on the arrows in the lower right corner of the image to get a
huge enlargement.
These results are almost
identical to ones I got over a year ago. I would be glad to test
others, but not at the expense of purchasing them.
