Genuine Fractals Review
Ordering Genuine Fractals
Use the OnOne Coupon Code of ”STUCKINCUSTOMS” here in the OnOne Store to save the most on all their products, including Genuine Fractals. You can order the product directly from OnOne Software here.
Also, I have a full review of the OnOne Plugin suite here on the site – you’ll love it!
A Short Review
Genuine Fractals is a great product that allows you to dramatically increase the size of your image. This comes in handy for all sorts of situations, including detail enhancement, printing big prints, post-processing, and advanced cropping.
You know those crime shows on TV when they have a small image from a security camera, and then they magically zoom in and you can see them perfectly? I always thought that was fake until I used this product! Okay, well, that Hollywood BS is still kinda fake… but, essentially, that is what this software does.
I use Genuine Fractals a lot to make a photo dramatically bigger without significant loss to detail and edges. My background is in Computer Science and Math, and, frankly, I have no idea how they made such an amazing algorithm to do this! On their site, they claim to be able to enlarge a photo to 1000% with no loss in detail. I can’t say I entirely believe that, but it is very very close to that!
Here is another bit of information that may seal the deal for you. This is the same software that is used by the major print companies to make giant prints for art, ad campaigns, and the like. Now, for people like you and I that don’t normally have to make GIANT prints, this is not an issue. However, I often make large prints from a section of a cropped photo, and I want it to be big and sharp.
That last point should be expounded upon. Even though cameras are getting more and more megapixels, there is often a situation where you may crop down the original photo quite a bit. Genuine Fractals will allow you to increase the size of that photo once again to make it nice and big.
For years, I have used the image stretching inside of Photoshop. But Genuine Fractals is waaaaay better. Trust me.
When you start up Genuine Franctals inside Photoshop, you get a special dialog. The dialog is very easy to use, and you can do all the cropping, sharpness adjustment, and many other things right inside that dialog. It’s very smart.
The original image at the original size of 3523×5027, as shot with a Nikon D3X.
The cool Genuine Fractals interface. This is before I have typed in the new dimensions, which I doubled.
The stump at 100% before using Genuine Fractals.
The stump at 100% AFTER using Geniune Fractals.
An example of how you can re-crop an image in an interesting way and still have a giant image 5700 pixels across!
Here is the original, shot at 6048×4032 with a Nikon D3X
And here is the same photo full screen. We will zoom in on some of those stickers.
Here is the Sweet Leaf sticker at 100% BEFORE Geniune Fractals
And here it is AFTER Genuine Fractals.
Here is some very strange secret code sticker on the door at 100% before Genuine Fractals
And here it is after the doubling inside Geniune Fractals
Here is another zoomed-in detail that is very nice after Geniune Fractals… go back to the original pic and see how small this was!
Thanks for this review Trey! I have read good things about this software. Although I don’t need to have any resizing done to my images, I’ve been wondering if Genuine Fractals can be used to improve the quality of the images at their current size? If I have an image that has a lot of noise, it seems to me if I were to run it through this software at no quality loss and then resize it the noise would be reduced. Is this faulty logic?
I have used this many times and LOVE it! I often get people from work bringing me very low res small images they want printed large. There’s just no way to do it without this program. This has saved my butt MANY times and made me look like a hero.
Plus they are based here in Portland, Oregon. WOOHOO!!!
I am using this software often and I love it and I completely agree with you. It is awesome and does wonders. I am also using the PhotoFrame 4. It creates interesting edge effect and textures to photos. Check it out some time and maybe write a review.
[...] put together a Genuine Fractals Review. This is a great tool for increasing the size of a photo without losing many details. I’m [...]
Thanks all
Samantha – I never thought of that. It does have a smart “Sharpening” feature, that you could probably use. You might have to re-size the image and make it a tiny bigger in order for the sharpening to kick in.
Thanks so much for this review, Trey! I’ve been curious about Genuine Fractals for some time, wondering if the hype was valid. Am definitely going to acquire this, as I’ve inherited the family slide collection and need a way to enlarge those tiny images to a frameable size. And every so often, I do manage to take a hang-worthy photo …
Cool – well I think you’ll have a good time with it.
How does this compare to Alien Skin Blowout?
Any ideas does it work outside of photoshop on its own or with any other editing software out there. I suppose I could go read up but if any knows would be great to know. Thanks!
Brian – I am not sure – but all my professional photographer friends in real life do use Genuine Fractals — I have not heard of any using Alien Skin – but this is anecdotal, obviously.
Stephen – I think it only works inside of Photoshop… but I may very well be wrong about that.
Do you use the sharpening component in GF to offset any softness induced from the resampling and maintain the same image sharpness as the original file?
[...] Stuck in Customs has a review of Genuine Fractals [...]
I think it would also be useful to have the before/after images blown up to the same size so it would be obvious just how bad it would be without using the software.
for small photos can use Reshade.com online
Trey, from your reviews, it appears we use the same software!
Okay, I give! Where is Secret Lake? Wow–what a great shot!
[...] Genuine Fractals Review [...]
Thanks! Hehe…
Ivy – that lake – you mean in the photo? It’s a little waterfall and lake in Patagonia
Trey – can you show us for comparison the difference between using say PS with the 10% rule to get to a larger size, versus using Genuine Fractals to make the same size. I’d love to see a small section of an image blown up both ways – side by side.
Will Genuine Fractals work with Lightroom 2 or 3?
[...] von Stuck in Customs Ich habe eine Genuine Fractals Review . Dies ist ein großes Werkzeug für die Vergrößerung eines Fotos, ohne viele Details zu [...]