Genuine Fractals

[thistle_dew]

I brought this software up in another thread.
http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2
We where discussing whether to watermark or not to watermark images on the internet.
I have become a firm believer in watermarking.
I have personally came across my work credited to another artist and quite frankly it pissed me off.
My print guy used Genuine Fractals to enlarge my own 8x10 oil pastel drawings to larger print poster size 16x20 with very good result but I don't like the idea that someone else can right click my image and make their own poster.
Genuine Factals not CSI perfect like Aranae mentioned but it's pretty darn effective within reason and that makes it scary.
With any software the potential for abuse is always there.
As an experiment I'm going to go to facebook ask someone if I can use their avatar and see what I can do as far as enlarging it.
I'll be back with the results...

~Angela

[thistle_dew]

Ok, so I'm back already!
I downloaded the Genuine Fractals 5 free demo which is an add on to Photoshop. That was relatively quick and painless.
I asked my nephew, Daniel, if I could use his facebook avatar thumbnail and he was ok with it so I right clicked that and saved it. It is 50x50 image.
From that I enlarged it to 800 x 800 which is the biggest jpg you can post on here.

Here are the results...

[jburnett]

That's interesting. It does blur the it up a bit, but it's impressive the size you got off of it from the small size of an avatar.

[Aranea]

Wow. That is impressive.

Now I want to get the program myself and try something. I'm busy, so it may take me a day or two. I want to create a small jpg of one of my paintings and enlarge it with Genuine Fractals, then compare the enlarged jpg to the original bmp scan.

If jpg's enlarged with Genuine Fractals look as good as the original scan, then this is indeed scary. Not only in terms of art displayed online, but for any artwork published and sold. The buyer could scan it, smooth it's appearance, and reprint it.

I need to study copyright law.


Aranea

[Aranea]

Okay, I got Photoshop and the demo of Genuine Fractals.

Experiment one: I used the JPG. that I made for my customer. It's 500 pixels by 690 pixels. I enlarged it to 2500 pixels wide, or the same width as the original scan. It did enlarge nicely, but it looks very different from the original.

Here's a section of the original scan, for comparison. I just cropped out a 426 pixel wide section, so it still shows the detail of the original.:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/6...encegftte7.png


Here's a similar cropped out section from the jpg enlarged 500% to be the same size as the above original image.:
http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/1...encegfthw4.png


Lastly, this is my avatar, enlarged from 80 pixels wide to 500 pixels wide. It kept its' smooth edges, but otherwise it looks atrocious.:
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/7...encegfthb0.png



After I made my post here yesterday, it occurred to me than anyone who buys a print from me, or a book of my work, or anything like that can scan it, print it, and sell copies of it if they so chose.

With that in mind, I'm thinking that the best an artist can do is to try to find and stop misuse of their work. Preventing it completely is impossible. Of course I'm still in favor of watermarks.



Aranea

[jburnett]

I'm amazed by the loss of detail. It's sort of comforting.

They copy issue is so complicated.

[artspandirector]

The Genuine Fractals is very interesting. I will test it out today. That enlargement is impressive..amplifying anything 16x is problematic!.

You might also want to test out PhotoZoom from BenVista, trial version is here
http://www.benvista.com/main/content...page=downloads

[Leisu]

Thanks for pointing out this software: IT'S AMAZING! I am always trying to see detail in something small! (perhaps I should just get glasses)