We used Genuine Fractals in the office a few years ago and found it a godsend when we had to make a set of oversize A3 prints for an exhibition of photos from tiny originals taken by high-school students. I've just upgraded to the latest version of this as I have a lot of small images, typically 800 x 600 pixels, that I want to print rather larger than would normally be advisable. Has anyone used this (now known as Perfect Resize 7 Pro) with QU? I ask because the pull-downs recommend setting target ppi as 240 or 360 for Epson printers, and I have a feeling it's not quite as simple as all that. Of course it would be great if that's really all I have to bother about... Naturally, I've tried a couple of prints already, and there seems to be a slight advantage in Perfect Resize's favor over a straight QU print from the non-resized original, but I'm so new to QU that I'm probably not getting the best possible results from it. So any advice or comments would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Terry. I had an uneasy feeling after I bought the upgraded Resize plugin that QU was doing something similar. Fortunately, I also need to be able to display images that were originally 800 x 600 pixels at rather larger pixel dimensions, and this is where Resize excels. For printing, clearly QU is doing a great job. I had already found my way to the "Restless Natives" post, which was what made me think QU could do a good job printing small original images at larger sizes. However, Resize 7 Pro will still be useful in displaying them. Oddly enough, there DOES seem to be some slight advantage in using Resize to create a larger image and THEN using QU to print it. It's very subtle, and I am now checking whether it depends upon the nature of the original image. For instance, one slight advantage I noted was in a B&W print. There was no visible difference between two colour prints. I've no idea why that should be but I am guessing that QU is sometimes able to make good use of qualities that the fractal-based resizing algorithm generates in the larger image. I am increasingly impressed with QU. What incredible value!

Hi Roger,
Just had to add to Terry's excellent explanation.
Realizing that you are asking about UP sampling more than Down Sampling, I still thought you might find it interesting to see a feature that Qimage has embedded in the bowels of her ship related to Down sampling.

This is versatility for a discerning person like yourself who can appreciate the subtle quality adjustment available.

If you click EDIT, Preferences, and then select the top choice, Interpolation, (see snap), you can adjust the anti aliasing for more or less (to taste) for your down sampling.
These are special algorithms written by Mike, the author, that make the best quality down sampled images, and allows you to tweak it to a higher degree of your standards.
More Antialiasing, less chance of an artifact. Less antialiasing, sharper image, but with a chance of some artifact possible, depending on the type of image subject. 

Just thought you would appreciate some of the sophisticated abilities of Qimage Ultimate.

I am enjoying your discussion.... except I already know the winner.!!     

Fred

I don't know about "discerning." You don't have to have much in that area to see what a great job QU does. But you are right that this is an interesting feature. Genuine Fractals was a breakthrough when it came out, and enabled us to upsize low-res student pics to A3 oversize prints without any pixellization. But I like the idea of the ability to control anti-aliasing. Perfect Resize 7 Pro (to give it its full name!) does a very fine job with its default settings but I haven't seen much help on tweaking it. Maybe I should spend some time at the "Perfect One University."   

 

Well, I'll have to leave that until tomorrow. At the moment Resize has my vote for a slight quality advantage in some cases but this is without looking under the hood at QU. Now,  however, I know that if I can get any advantage out of QU in printing I will also be able to create comparable display images. So it's definitely worth playing with these settings. Thanks for the pointer. By the way I have already sold one friend on getting QU! He asked if it could handle file preparation for professional colour labs printing very large posters, say 4 x 6 feet. I remembered seeing a discussion about that and he'll be downloading the 30-day trial as soon as he can get around to it.