Original Size Thumbnail

Seen below is the original image which measures 282 x 219 pixels with a resolution of 72 ppi (pixels per inch).

If you would like to view the entire originals which were produced during this review, you can download them below or view them in another browser window. Note they are somewhat large, so if you're on dial-up, this may take a few moments. If you have broadband access, you won't wait that long. To view the images, simply click on the links and to download the images, just right-click and "Save Target As".

"Charly's Nose" Originals
Charly's Nose	View Blow Up Original
Charly's Nose	View Photoshop CS2 Original
Charly's Nose	View GF Print Pro 5 Original

In This Conclusion: Blow Up Wins Again

In this example we can observe Blow Up is using the advantage of granular sharpening, as mentioned on the previous page. However, this is simply not done by an Adobe PS filter. This is done much more intuitively at the micro-level of the image. Once again, the special grains are minimizing sharp geometric shapes which distort an image at extreme upsampling, and yet preserve an image sharpness.

Adobe's bicubic upsampling gets us a noticeable amount of blurring which would certainly be an issue at much larger upsamplings. Genuine Fractals Print Pro 5, while at first looking "clean", a second look the image is highly reminiscent of some of Adobe's Artistic filters, which make the image more of a painting-like texture. The roof of Charly's nostrils show pyramid-like shapes which are not exactly consistent with the original image.

GF Print Pro 5 exhibits geometric shapes which are probably done on purpose to produce a pseudo-sharpening affect but what is lost, is the realism.

What Alien Skin has apparently been successful at accomplishing, is applying a very complex film grain algorithm with their upsampling application. For avid film users this is probably an exciting moment. For digital users, you should be just as excited because the prints will look realistic.