Attached Link: http://www.ononesoftware.com/download.php

Since this question about "what print size, resolution do I need" comes up in a number of Vue threads and other Renderosity threads- those interested in this topic might want to consider "Genuine Fractals". There is a free 30 day working trial of the software available- and if nothing else- it might help you learn more about print resolution!

While not CHEAP (It's $159.95)- if you are looking for a way to render reasonably sized Vue art for COMMERCIAL use, it could be a very VALUABLE tool. The demo gives you a chance to try 20 images before it expires- so you can see for yourself if it is worth it- or NOT.

The primary concept behind Genuine Fractals is a unique conversion of RGB data into a highly scalable format that doesn't lose resolution. This means that instead of SUPER Hi-Rez renders of your artwork- you could use a medium-sized render, at your own favorite quality setting, without really killing your machine (crashes, freezes) or yourself (jumping out of the window, etc.)

Attached Link: http://www.imaging-resource.com/SOFT/GF/GF.HTM

...and HERE is a link to a review of Genuine Fractals that may also help you understand more about it and what it does.

This is a fairly OLD review, back when it was owned by Altamira, later sold to Lizardtech, and now marketed by
OnOne Software. At the end of the review is ANOTHER review that further clarifies some points in the first review.

Read the reviews, try the demo, and make up your OWN mind as to whether or NOT this is for YOU and worth the money...

Attached Link: Stair Interpolation Pro 2

Fred Miranda's Stair Interpolation Pro 2 works better than Genuine Fractals and costs only $ 24.90 Anyway beware, if quality is #1 concern, interpolated images will never look as good as non-interpolated images in top quality prints (such as quality coated photo book pages). For low quality prints (such as home inkjet printers), the trick may actually be useful.

Orio- Thanks for providing this link. I'm going to test both of these this weekend and see what works best. I'm also looking for other On-Line Reviews to see if anyone has done other independent side-by-side tests...

Attached Link: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/gf.htm

Here's another Genuine Fractals review that provides a fairly good balanced view- plus general "common sense" about image resolution, including tips on printing on Inkjet printers...

Attached Link: http://www.perpetualvisions.com/articles-and-graphics/review-genuinefractals.htm

THIS should be good to read for those interested in this type of technology as it applies to 3D images- a test made with a Vue 5 image and Photoshop using Genuine Fractals... HEY!- I just read this -and its by Renderosity's own Senior Writer Paula Sanders!

Message edited on: 11/18/2005 21:58

Attached Link: http://www.americaswonderlands.com/digital_photo_interpolation.htm

Here's a GREAT Review that compares a whole BUNCH of software methods. The reviewer doesn't select a winner- but there are a lot of sample images to help you understand what they all do. NOTE: This review doesn't include the current NEW versions of Stair Interpolation 2 or Genuine Fractals 4.1-- both of which have substational enhancements as new versions have just been released...

I have used often Genuine Fractals in my previous job when I was the art director of an organization involved in organizing fine art exhibitions and books. At the time it was almost the only available tool of it's kind and I must admit it saved my day more than once where I had to fill pages and I had no high resolution photographs available. But I could never like the way it tends to smooth flat color surfaces in a way that looks innatural to me. In order to eliminate the unavoidable noise that you have when you interpolate from low quality sources, GenFract creates some visible artifacts which I could never like. If the tradeoff to have less noise must be "jpggish" artifact in my images, I prefer the noise. In fact, I even prefer Lanczos to GenFract. To me, Stair Interpolation Pro is the better choice because it keeps so much detail. And that's pretty much the whole point about interpolation, because, if I didn't care about detail, I would simply use the bicubic in Photoshop. Stair Interpolation Pro surely brings in more noise in flat areas than GenFract. But a wise use of Grain Surgery after Stair Interpolation Pro is going to give you better results than GenFract in 90% of the cases, in my opinion. Anyway now that my job is completely different, I almost never use interpolation. The rare times I do, is to actually decrease detail in images. In fact i almost never antialias my Vue renders. I render them at 4 times the final size then resample them down using simple Bicubic Photoshop (or Bicubic sharper if I feel I need more "punch"). I learned this trick in the beginning of my work with 3D and I have to say, I still ahve to find a 3D application whose built-in antialiasing works better that the "render larger-photoshop resample" workflow. The only kind of antialiasing that I still use is -sometimes- Vue's texture antialiasing.

Attached Link: http://www.visinf.com/downloads/

(A link to Visual Infinity's Grain Surgery Demo download) Really great professional advice! And as you say- your needs for a particular look to a final image really depends a LOT on the type of images you produce and how they are to be used. One of the benefits of Genuine Fractals is the small file size for transfer to print houses, etc. It's especially great for very LARGE format prints, like billboards, building graphics, etc. But Stair Interpolation 2 is better used for Professional Photography prints- and likely too for Vue images featuring detailed landscapes, etc. It really depends on where your END product is going and for what purpose. I can see that Professional Illustrators might want BOTH, depending upon the job, client needs, etc. I have not used Grain Surgery before and will definately download the demo and try it out. It looks like it would be another really good solution for the grainy shadows that sometimes show up in Vue renders. Using Photoshop and Vue's various output layers you can very precisely apply filter effects in just the shadows only. Every time I render anything in Poser, Vue- or even outside taking photos with my camera, I am always thinking about the Post-Processing I'm going to do to it with Photoshop.

I could not live (professionally) without Grain Surgery. It's expensive but worth every penny. It's actually the only really expensive Photoshop plugin that I have. And the reason I bought it it's that I found nothing else that can do this essential job so well. I wish Adobe could incorporate this technology inside Photoshop. The grain filters of Photoshop are like dinosaurs compared with GS. I forgot the best thing about it: bloody easy to use. Never had to read the help files once.

Orio, Adobe probably would incorporate Grain Surgery into Photoshop IF they could buy or license it.

I saw a review of GF in a photography mag a while back and it was basically slated. If you convert an image to Lab colour, and scale it up in 10% increments, you get a final product that is indistinguisable from the GF method. NOT WORTH THE MOPNEY

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/index.ez?viewStory=9613

I love visitors to my perpetualvisions web site; but I also wrote this review for Renderosity. I could not remember what month, so I looked it up and the URL is above. The Front Page news archives is FPN News Archives listed on the right banner under highlights. onOne software bought a bunch of programs this spring. They bought Genuine Fractals from Lizard Tech. It was originally an Altimira product. Just putting this in if anyone is confused. I use it all the time and have been very happy with the results. Obviously if you render at, for example 800 x 600 @ 72 dpi you will not get as much data as if you rendered at a higher resolution. What I do is see how I am going to use the image. For example, I used my Poser 5 nude in a pond. I could see the difference in her face at difference rendering resolutions. The Anti-Aliasing or other settings did not make the difference. There were more differentiated skin colored pixels to work with at a higher resolution. If I wanted a lot of detail, that was important. But, if I wanted a soft picture where the details were just there as if they were done in pastel, I could first render at a lower resolution. However, so far I rarely go above about 1024 x 768 @300 dpi or some such configuration. Then I switch in Photoshop to 300 dpi, if I have used something else, and use Gebuine Fractals. I saw the last post about working in Lab mode. I also do that, but only for small increments and for a small increase in overall size. I have tested the lab method, which I have used for years and the Genuine Fractal method, and I found a difference. If anyone wants to know how to work in lab mode, let me know and I can post a tutorial on it. I'm going to check into some of the other programs mentioned in the article on americaswonderlands.com mentioned above for future reviews. Thanks for the information. Just a last note, I have used earlier versions of Genuine Fractals and there is a difference between those and version 4.

Very true! And keep those articles coming- always very interesting and informative. Also to Pintamiter- the Ken Rockwell website (post #5) above, clearly states too that you are wasting your time with small incremental scales with Genuine Fractals! Either you want to scale something up really BIG with GF (which is what it is really good for) or just use Photoshop. In fact even David Halpern (post #2) mentions the Photoshop scaling steps as a really good method- but time consuming- and this is what Orio's post covers -about Stair Interpolation 2 by Fred Miranda, using Photoshop Actions to do the stepping automatically. So a GOOD RANGE of software choices are there and available! It's amazing how many people you see "beating their heads against walls" trying to get Super Hi-Rez renders out of Vue when a FINE rendered setting at medium to high resolution- and then processed through Photoshop filters and/or actions- will give them the Super Hi-Rez they need- saving hours/days of rendering and frustration. etc.