Re:Genuine Fractals - Yet Another Test/Opinion

[Jon Zax <lotus@ionix.net>]

As some on this list might recall, I was on the beta team for the GF products, and submitted
them to tests beyond any that have been reported or referenced here in recent posts.

First, the source image is critical in evaluating the performance of the plug-in. In my tests
I used scans from a polaroid ss plus, drum scans, a kodak consumer digital camera and
a high end studio 3 pop digital back on a sinar 4x5.
The old computer adage garbage in garbage out  really applies here.
Frankly, while the polaroid and nikon scanners do allow one to actually do digital imaging,
they are toys.
What I found was that there is a base level of image data that needs to be there for GF to
really work.
I made drum scans at various resolutions from 2 megs to a full size file that would print out directly at 20x24. All prints were made on a Iris printer. The sweet spot was between
20 and 30 megs. Prints from that file size when rezed up in GF were as good as the full
sized file.
The workflow that this suggests is that all one needs is a 30 meg file to print out to any size
with GF, not to store all your files as .stn.

The files from the kodak camera were pretty bad no matter what I did, but the files from the
studio digital back, while only 12 megs, did produce amazing results. I shot the same set up
with film, then had a digital 4x5 imaged on a 16k solitaire film recorder and showed them
around side by side. although there was a slight difference, no one could tell which one was
digital without a loupe. The file size for the film recorder was 120 megs.

Technically, GF does not interpolate pixels or resample. It converts the image to something
more like a vector file using fractal algorithms. When asked to resize a brand new file is
rendered at the new size. It is certainly true that no new detail can be added, but the fractal
nature of the file keeps it from having to guess edge and color detail, as is done in
resampling.

This is a highend product and not for most users.

J.Z.


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