Pixel Scaling Software 4 Print ?

[cnm72]

hola people...


I am working on a project where we need to make a professional grade flyer with am image which is 180dpi... I was talking to my friend at my printing lab today about how I could do this (one idea was to print it and then scan it in at 300dpi as that is what the printing company needs the dpi to be... drama... the picture is high contrast, lots of shadow etc.) and he suggested this product which he just heard about...

color=#800080http://www.extensis.com/pxlsmartscale/index.html?ref=hp ("")

I am curious as to if anyone has experience with this and what their thoughts were on the subject... I have downloaded the trial and it is easy to use but I would feedback on the situation itself


thank you kindly...


---- CNM ----

[PrintDriver]

Your friend at the printing lab suggested printing out a 180dpi image and rescanning it at 300?



Then you'll have a 300dpi scan of a 180 dpi image and depending on the source and the scanner, moires or jaggies to go with it.



As a general rule you can't res up a digital image. Sure programs like Genuine Fractals and even Photoshop can interpolate higher resolution but they cheat to do it and you will lose something, either contrast, sharpness, or color. I'm sure the Extensis plug-in works similar to the first too but haven't had the opportunity to test it yet. Sounds like yet another "pixel stretcher" to me. It may be smarter but it still is using existing data to guess at additional data. Will run it by "those who know."

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

[PrintDriver]

Hey, just checked this thing out.



It's $40 more than Genuine Fractals and works as well. I don't want to say better without actually getting a print run. My buddy hates interpolation software (uses it when necessary) and refuses to comment, LOL.



It did tend to oversharpen and up the contrast of the image quite a bit, some colors went off with these changes. I had text embedded in the image and that tended to get a little wonky from background pixel borrowing, as expected.



I would tend to file it as "tool for use in case of emergency". Wouldn't try to bring a 180dpi image up to 300 dpi at the same scale for magazine use. If the size is going up with the dpi, good luck.



Specialization is for insects...

R.H.

[cnm72]

wow... sorry for getting back to you so late on this...thanx for your input... I appreciate it </div>



http://graphicdesignforum.com/emoticons/icon_smile.gif</div>



I can totally understand the idea of being againstthis sort of software... I have used it a few times since my first post in Jan. and in some cases it worked fine... in others it did not... as you mentioned it can do odd things to hi-contrast images &amp; bright colors but I have not had issues with jaggies which wasthe main concern... for that a few tweaks to adjust color and sharpness seems worth it...</div>
until we can afford a new camera this will have to do... if anyone else has any experience with this sort of software/issue I would love hearing from you... I promise not to take 3 months to respond this time http://graphicdesignforum.com/emoticons/oops.gif </div>



thanx!</div>

---- CNM ----

[PrintDriver]

Do a time study on how long it takes you to tweak color and sharpness and compare that cost to the cost of a new camera.

Specialization is for insects...

R.H.