BlowUp is to be used within the Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Elements environment, due to it being an automation plug-in. It's rather simple to use, as the BlowUp processing engine does most of the work. All you have to do is figure out what size you want your images to be after they are upsampled. Alien Skin does mention there is a 30,000 pixel limit on size, which should only deter a very small percentage of the digital imaging consumer from using BlowUp (and even so, I have a way to make images as large as you could possibly want with a few simple techniques which will be discussed later on in the review).

Upsampling images is probably an underused feature as most computer users are reducing their images to fit on their website and photo galleries. However, there are times when enlarging your images is needed, and the current resolution of your image is just not enough. This is where a program like Alien Skin's BlowUp, can help.

Alien Skin BlowUp Features

Some of the major features of Blow Up:

• GUI is a streamlined version of other Alien Skin interfaces
• Resizes Layers (including transparencies)
• Resizes Layer Masks
• Resizes Fill or Adjustment Layers (i.e., Gradient Maps, Color Fills)
• Upsampling speed is dependent on the processor so the bigger and badder your computer system, the better
• Upsample 1600% (4x) of the actual image without artifacts (sometimes up to 3600%/6x)