New Photokit suggestion

[Stephen_Scharf]

Well, I am posting this message here because 1) there is no "general" Photokit forum, a place to discuss current Photokit products and suggestions for future Photokit products and 2) it seems an appropriate place to talk about Photokit, at least in one sense, because it is so useful for producing beautiful prints.

Anyway, have the PixelGenius(es) thought about a PhotoKit Presenter? This would be an optmized Photokit set for downsampling (for web) or upsampling images (for print). I have been very impressed with the Photokit Sharpeners, and feel that the quality of my printed output took a true quantum leap up in production value when I incorporated them in to my printing workflow. I had been using Fred Miranda's excellent camera sharpeners, but Photokit has them beat. With the advent of Photokit Color, it seems to me now that a good up or downsampling PhotoKit would be of great interest and benefit for users. I'm not particularly impressed with Photoshops native up- or downsampling procedures, and really prefer Fred Miranda's Stair Interpolation Pro and Web Presenter Pro. It seems to me the Photokit PixelGenius crew could create the ultimate down or upsampling tools. Any thoughts?

[Jeff Schewe]

I've moved this thread to the Using PhotoKit because this is the appropriate place for it.

Actually, Photoshop CS's resampling is much improved over version 7 and before. The Bicubic Smoother has tested out as being superior to standard bicubic in steps. The Bicubic Sharper is considerable better for retaining improved sharpness when downsizing for the web.

While there is no longer any benifit to step interpolation for uprezing, there is still a benefit to downsizing in steps of no more than 50% per step.

As to producing any products based upon resizing, no, there really is not a compelling reason. Between Camera Raw's uprez and Photoshop CS's uprez, there is really no reason. As for downrezing, I supose one could come up with a step downrez, but writting an action that changes the interpolation to Bicubic Sharpen, downsampes by 66% several times and then does a Fit Image automate and ten finishes off by going back to the prefs and setting the interpolation back to standard Bicubic seems like the way to go.

[Stephen_Scharf]

Jeff,
Thanks for the informative reply. I wasn't aware the new Bucibic Smoother was better than stair interpolation, that's very useful. As for downrezzing, I could continue to use the Miranda Web Presenter Pro action unless there is a better way to do it....I'm not enough of a Photoshop Power user to know if it would be better than the protocol you mentioned.

[John MacLean Photography]

Jeff,

Why didn't Adobe just use more intuitive words like Up-sample and Down-sample, instead of Smoother and Sharper? Seems like a no-brainer, at least to me?

Thanks,
jMac

[sergiob]

Is the math behind the uprezzing in ACR the same as the one in the Image Size dialog?
I find it better to do it in ACR in first place. Is there any benefit in doing in the raw conversion first? How do you do this?

Thanks,

Sergio

[John MacLean Photography]

I find it better to do it in ACR in first place. Is there any benefit in doing in the raw conversion first? How do you do this?

Sergio, I'm confused about your wording? ACR is the raw conversion! To change sizes in ACR, you just click on the Size in the lower left corner of the ACR window, and pick a size with the (+) on the end of it.

But I think I prefer the native resolution (4064 by 2704) on my 1Ds. Then once it's open in PS, applying the PhotoKit Capture Sharpener. then upsampling with Bicubic Smoother. YMMV!

[sergiob]

I do my uprezzing in ACR first. What I mean is if it is the same to upsample in ACR opposed to Bicubic Smoother in PS. Just plain curiosity since both work very well on properly shot files.

[cjphoto]

I use CS for my upsizing, and have been getting great results. The native 47meg tiff from the Kodak DCS Proback prints at 13.57x13.57 at 300dpi. I upsample to 40x40 with no prior sharpening and then sharpen very carefully with output sharpen or (just experimenting) luminance sharpening.

I always sharpen last, just before output.

Can anyone suggest the best rez and sharpening routine for large prints on a 9600 with Studioprint RIP and Ultrachrome inks?

[apbatt]

..While there is no longer any benifit to step interpolation for uprezing...

Hi Jeff - can you elaborate on this?

Thanks

Andy

[Jeff Schewe]

Pre-Photoshop CS, the Step Interpolation process of uprezzing by 110% multiple times produced better results than a single uprez. However, the Photoshop engineers looked into this and concluded they needed an improved scheme and produced Bicubic Smoother that produces better results with a single uprez than multiple steps in prior versions of Photoshop.

So, in CS, there's no reason to use Step Interpolation. Use Bicubic Smoother.

[apbatt]

Right - Bicubic smoother - no problemo - that's what I've been doing. But maybe I'm confusing terms here. I thought (aside from Fred's action) that step interpolation was the process of rezing up and down in increments. As of Photoshop CS and from D65, I have been doing 50% file size jumps up (smooth) and down(sharp) to re-rez - so about 70% dimensional for down and 120% dimensional for up.

Are you saying that you can go from size x to size y in one jump, regardless of the percentage gain?

andy

[Jeff Schewe]

For uprez in CS with Bicubic Smoother, I see no benefit to doing so in steps.

As far as downrezing, that's a different story. I would never downrez in steps greator than 50% and I would use a combination of regular Bicubic and Bicubic Sharpenr to get from high rez to web rez. . .

[twwilliams]

For uprez in CS with Bicubic Smoother, I see no benefit to doing so in steps.

As far as downrezing, that's a different story. I would never downrez in steps greator than 50% and I would use a combination of regular Bicubic and Bicubic Sharpenr to get from high rez to web rez. . .
Now I'm curious. I saw your post in another thread about down sampling at 66% a few times to get close and then using Fit Image to get to the final dimensions. I've been doing this with just the bicubic sharper interpolation.

How would you use a combination of regular bicubic and bicubic sharpener? Would you do the first 66% with bicubic sharper, then the second with bicubic, then bicubic sharpener, etc.? Alternating them? Or would you use some other method?

I've been very happy with the results I've gotten by resizing in multiple steps.

[peegeenyc]

funny, (going back to the original posters request) I was going to write suggesting the same thing.
we do need a dedicated action set/ program for digital uprezing.
bicubic smoother is nice, but surely something better can be obtained, no?

we all need our digital files blown up more than a small amount sometimes, and you guys with your knowledge, should surely be able to work out a better way to do that without the poor results there areat present.

[soboyle]

I've found that if you reduce your image in steps using bicubic sharper for each step that the image gets an over sharpened look. So I usually bicubic to get close the the final size and use bicubic sharper for the final resize.

[kdoc]

Why would you resize, Jeff, down with a combination of bicubic sharper and regular: and how would you decide which of those two to use?

kdoc

[Fabrice Grover]

Fred Miranda recently released a new upsampling/downsampling plugin called Resize Pro:

The process it uses provides much better results than the current interpolation tools on the market since it is based on pixel contrast. What this does, is automatically select the pixels that are essentially responsible for the appearance of detail in your image, and gives them a special treatment during the interpolation process. This treatment results in a more detailed, natural looking image at any selected print size.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/RP/

Is this "special treatment" a form of sharpening? And would the plugin work in a PKS workflow?

Fabrice

[Jeff Schewe]

I am reluctant to comment on another company's product.

However, let me recount my experience working with Chris Cox at Adobe while he was testing out various uprez and downrez interpolations for Photoshop CS. When you add or subtract pixels in an image, you are either creating new pixels where there weren't any or are taking pixels away. Either process requires precise calculations and exotic algorithms.

Chris sent out test algorithms to testers like Bruce, Martin Seth and myself. We weren't told what each was actually doing but each was subtly different. During the course of the testing a variety of criteria was set-most important among the uprez was the cleanness of the uprez and the ability to apply sharpening?both locally and globally?to the resulting uprezed images.

If you apply -ANY- sharpening during the uprez algorithms you will substantially reduce the ability to modify the image after uprez. Thus, Photoshop CS's Bicubic Smoother intentionally does NOT use substantial sharpening. The result is a much smoother uprezed image that takes post processing and sharpening a lot better.

As for the Bicubic Sharper downrez, sharpening was intentionally introduced to adjust the typical softening effect of down-sampling.

So, the question you have to ask yourself, who do you think knows more about image interpolation methods and optimal results, Fred or Chris Cox?

The side-by-side example images don't tell much of a story. Obviously the Bicubic Smoother requires sharpening. So does the FM result. . .which would sharpen better? Bicubic Smoother, no question.

As for how it would work in a PK Sharpener workflow? It doesn't.

[Tim Ernst]

Fabrice:

When I asked Bruce Fraiser recently on this board about using Photokit Sharpener on files for high-res projection (1400 x 1050), he said that "I'm afraid that for the moment, you're on your own." (he said that he would be adding high-res support later) So I tried Fred's new Resize Pro to downrez files from my 1ds2 for projection and got very good results, much better than anything I could get "on my own" with PK Sharpen and CS downrez/sharpen. Kind of silly/childish to get into a "Chris knows more than Fred" debate, but for my files, at the moment, Fred's plugin works better than PSCS & PK sharpen, and so that is what I am using. There are lots of great tools out there...

Tim Ernst in Arkansas
www.Cloudland.net

[jbmoar]

Hello,I Think Photokit Is A Great product but Needs A Few Enhancements Such as:

When Choosing The filter type in the drop down box,If Photokit Could Add A Enhancement So You could see A Preview Window Of what The results would look like as most plugins out there have some sort of preview window, Is just A Suggestion though for the pixel genius team, other than the needed preview window,I Think this is A Great product

Thanks

[jbmoar]

After Reading Many Diferent Reviews,I Have Found Out And understand Partially why Pixel Genius Has No Preview Windows In It's results, Is Not Possible from What I've read because Of the technology they use plus the fact preview windows take up too Much memory and the way photokit Programs work is by creating layers or masks and from this procedure you experiment as much as you want to find the best results so I Have decided my Post suggesting A Preview window would not be practicle or possible But I Do Have A Few sugggestions:

- If It we're possible to Add A Quick Link Within Photoshop To Access Photkit Programs, Maybe Even A Shortcut Key Using The keyboard.

- A Update Button Would Be nice To check For New updates; Maybe On the main Photokit Interface,Where The Help and Info buttons are located.

- Some Actions Filters For The Other 2 Photokit Programs Similar To Photkit Color Which Has Free Of Charge For registerd Users.

Brett