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Home >> Photography >> Digital Extensis
pxl SmartScale
You could try a few things to try to get to that poster size print:
Since this is a review about one of the interpolation methods, we will take a closer look at option number 3. Regular readers may recall an earlier article posted about Digital Resizing, in which I had a look at a few different methods to resize digital files. That original article was a result of being asked to review a method created by a software programmer attempting to sell his particular method for a modest US $25 fee. Unfortunately, the results did not indicate any difference with what was already available either for free or already a part of some editing applications, most notably, Photoshop’s Bi-cubic Interpolation. This article also originates as a request by a software company to review their resizing product, in this case, a much larger and better-known organization called Extensis with their pxl SmartScale plug-in for Photoshop. About
Extensis The current version of Photo Frame has over 2000 frames, which is pretty mind-boggling (at right is an example of using the Emulsion frame doubled up - one black and one white over the original image that had its original canvas sized up by 50% to allow for easier manipulation of the frame). Extensis has offices in the US and UK is also known for other digital editing related applications for Photoshop. However, most of these plug-ins and applications cost US $200 each, which can lead to a pretty significant chunk of coin spent on just the Extensis products. It could well end up being more than what you would pay for the full version of Photoshop (US $600). The pxl SmartScale plug-in also sells for US $200 and this puts it at a higer price than the other major third-party resizer, Lizardware’s Genuine Fractals 3.0 at US $160. pxl
SmartScale
And what of that promotional hype? In reading over the brochures and other promotional documents on SmartScale, over and over again, the claim of being able to upsize to 1600% of the original image’s size was presented. 1600%!? And with minimal loss of the original file’s details? Those are some mighty big claims and we will see if it lives up to them. SmartScale has some similar basic features as Genuine Fractals (GF), but with some additional features that make it more versatile. With GF, you save the original file as a proprietary STN file type. Doing so reduces the file size significantly, e.g. from 27 MB for a 2820 ppi film scan, down to less than 17 MB. Then when you need to access the STN file again, the Genuine Fractals window pops up that allows you to scale the STN file to whatever you wish with some basic choices for the quality desired. SmartScale also has some proprietary file types that you can save an original file as and these are also reduced in file size as with GF. However, the file size reduction is not as great as with GF, e.g. the 27 MB original file is reduced to about 20 MB. There are two choices for the proprietary file types for SmartScale, the regular VFZ and a password protection capable PFZ. These files types are compatible with the Photoshop File Browser, so you can see what the image looks like as a thumbnail whereas Genuine Fractals' STN files are not compatible for thumbnail views. This SmartScale thumbnail view does not work with the Windows Explorer browser though. Using the menu option for Extensis, you can choose to resize an image from your file directories or for the current image open in the Photoshop workspace. Either way, SmartScale will pop up a new workspace as large as the one for Photoshop. This workspace looks very similar to Photoshop, but with far less options and palettes available (same look and style as the PhotoFrame plug-in). There is even a navigation palette that you can use to scroll through the image, and as with Photoshop, it reflects the relative size of the red outline box corresponding to your screen view versus the entire image; however, it and the main screen view are an inaccurate indicator of what the final resized image will look like, being very pixelated beyond the 100% view. Additional palettes are available for setting the output or scaling size you want and sharpening parameters. In this regard, SmartScale attempts to provide a one-stop method of resizing and sharpening instead of a two-step edit with GF or other resizing methods. I generally find that additional sharpening is required to bring some “snap” back into the image when resizing with other methods.
Testing
Method
I also added a new wrinkle to the testing process, one that I did not do previously, but thought would be interesting to do. My test was to take a digital capture file and down-sample it to a lower resolution and then resizing upwards back to the original print size and comparing the two. It is not a fair comparison for sure, but the idea is to consider the original file as a reference and the ideal that we would love resizing applications to meet and then comparing the actual real world results of the different resizers to see how close they came to that reference. Another variation was to take an image taken with a wider focal length and comparing the 100% resized files to another shot taken with a focal length that is double the wide shot. Digital files were taken with my Nikon D100 in RAW capture mode. RAW files were processed through Capture One with some editing to the levels and curves for color correction and to brighten the image. Modest sharpening level of 25% was applied (Capture One's default setting), no additional edits applied once conversion to TIFF took place except for some modest sharpening when I worked on the super-scaled files. TIFF files were cropped and converted to 8-bit mode and then saved as maximum quality JPEGs. Film shots were with Fuji Velvia 50 in my Nikon F100. Given the rainy and overcast conditions, I rated Velvia by plus 1/2 stop. Slides were scanned with my Minolta Scan Dual III at full resolution and 16 bit mode. Anti-dust feature was off to ensure the sharpest scans. Both film and digital shots were taken with the cameras mounted on a tripod and an electronic cable release was utilized. Testing with Digital Capture at a Small Scale First set of images are with a scene taken at the 105mm focal length from my Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR lens. Aperture set to f8 and focus was on the white boat in the middle of the frame. The cropped image was resized up by 100% and compared to the view from the same scene taken with the lens set to 200mm.
Results The second set of images is based on a scene taken with the 70-200 lens set to 200mm and then reduced by 50% and then resized back up to its original size.
Results Testing with Scanned Film at a Small Scale Files were reduced by 50% and then scaled back up to original size.
Results Testing With Digital on a Large Scale
Results At 500% we begin to see SmartScale pull away from the other methods and it continues through to 1000% and 1600% scaling of the original image. Using the default settings, SmartScale is smoother with less artifacting. Applying some sharpening within the plug-in window allows you to really define the edges, but at the risk of jagged edges and halos surrounding the subject area. You can see the jaggedness more obviously in the samples below, which are 500% scaling from the original image. At such huge sizes, it is difficult to get a sense of the immensity of such prints. Consider that at 500% the original 2000x3000 D100 image scales up to 10040x15120, which is a 33x50 inch print at 300 dpi and is some 444 MB in size. In terms of what you would see on the monitor, at the typical 72 ppi resolution of PC monitor, this translates into an image that is 109x164 inches, which is very definitely billboard sized. I was able to resize SmartScale's VFZ file to 500% and it processed the image within a couple of minutes, which was far in away superior to waiting 30 minutes for Genuine Fractals to process the image to 500%. Photoshop's Bi-cubic Interpolation was also behind SmartScale for processing speed. However, I was unable to resize the scanned film file to 500% because my computer did not have enough RAM to handle the job. I was able to do it with both Genuine Fractals and Bi-Cubic Interpolation, with a resulting file size of almost 700 MB. SmartScale indicated that the maximum I could resize a D100 file was about 733%, so for the 1000% and 1600% file tests, I had to crop the test scene from the original file and then scale up. I cannot imagine how much RAM would be needed to res up an original 17 MB D100 file to 1600%. I believe though that there may be a limit to what SmartScale can do with larger files for ultimate scaling, i.e., even if I had a Sun SparcStation with reams of RAM ready to resize that file to 1600%, SmartScale may not be able to handle such a request, where it could with smaller files. I state this based on trying to type in "1600" in the SmartScale dialog box for resizing parameters without any success and seeing a message indicating I could only type in a value of just over 900% - this was before it actually computed that I only had enough RAM to scale a file to 733%. For the record, my computer is a P4 1.7 GHz with 1 GB of RAM, of which some 932 MB can be made available to Photoshop. I typically set the amount of RAM available as 80%, which means Photoshop usually has 745 MB of RAM to work with. Even with the full 932 RAM devoted to Photoshop, I could not scale the scanned film file to 500%. Egde Artifacts
Conclusion The results at such large scaling factors can be better than Genuine Fractals and pxl SmartScale has extra parameters available to enhance edge sharpness, but one has to be careful not to over do it, especially for a subject matter with plenty of diagonal lines. It also destroys Genuine Fractals for processing those super-size files, but do note that I was testing with Genuine Fractals 2.0, and that it is now at Version 3.0, so I have no idea whether the processing times have improved. Is pxl SmartScale for you? You can find out thanks to Extensis having a 30 day trial download of a fully capable version available for evaluation. Try before you buy, as some like to say. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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What
happens when you have a scanner or digital camera with a particular
resolution that can output a print to a particular maximum size while
maintaining true photographic quality, but you require a print that
exceeds that maximum photographic quality print size? Or put less
verbosely, what if you want a poster sized print from your lowish
resolution scanner or digital camera?
SmartScale
is a Photoshop plug-in, which you would expect, after installing it,
to reside under Photoshop’s main menu heading of Filters. Not so,
upon installing the application, a new menu item shows up beside the
Filters category called…wait for it…Extensis.
Now
I have already read one review online in which the reviewer did not
care for this particular altering of the Photoshop workspace and he
has a good point. The Filters category was created to hold all of
the aftermarket plug-ins, so this is where SmartScale should have
been placed. However, I’m not as annoyed by this behavior and if you
happen to have other Extensis applications installed, they will also
show up in this new menu category too. Basically, there are more important
things to worry about and if SmartScale lives up to all of Extensis’
promotional hype then it would be something most users could live
with.
