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Genuine Fractals vs. Enlarger PRO: which is better? (continued)
At 200%, the win definitely goes to Enlarger PRO. But what about at 400%?
Scale-off #1: 400%
It was much harder to call a winner at 400%. At 400%, Photoshop, Enlarger PRO, and Genuine Fractals all showed some degree of artifacting, as shown in Figure D.
FIGURE D
All three programs left artifacts. Click picture for a larger image.
Again, though, it's impossible to avoid noticing the pixelization in the Genuine Fractals enlargement. Genuine Fractals barely bested Photoshop and clearly didn't match Enlarger PRO in terms of image quality.
At 400%, the win again goes to Enlarger PRO.
Examining Genuine Fractals at 800%
As I mentioned earlier, in the included documentation, Genuine Fractals claims that the program works best at 500-600% enlargement. Although time didn't permit us to do another test against Enlarger PRO, we did generate a 600% enlargement using Genuine Fractals, shown in Figure E.
FIGURE E
The 600% enlargement showed the same artifacting as smaller enlargements. Click picture for a larger image.
Although the overall enlargement wasn't bad, it still showed the same artifacting problems, in the same locations, as the 400% enlargement.
Our verdict: the frog beats the lizard
At the beginning of the article, I mentioned that Enlarger PRO had gotten a 3-star rating in Connected Photographer. It didn't score a 4 because of the user interface problems we encountered and because the enlargements weren't quite as good as we'd really like.
But that was before we looked at Genuine Fractals. Genuine Fractals does have a cleaner user interface. We looked at the base product, which sells for $159.95. There's also a Pro version that does batch processing and has image presets. That version costs $299.95.
"Without question, Enlarger PRO is the better buy."
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By contrast, Enlarger PRO costs $39. That's a substantial cost savings over Genuine Fractals, and as our tests show, it beats Genuine Fractals quality by a considerable measure.
Because it's so substantially less expensive and generates a significantly higher quality image than its rival, we'd like to upgrade the rating of the product -- but we can't. Until the user interface quirkiness is removed, Enlarger PRO has to stay at a 3 out of 5 rating.
On the other hand, Genuine Fractals generated the lower quality enlargements and cost four times more than its rival. This is a 3 out of 5 product if we ever saw one.
OUR RATING: 3 of 5
Without question, Enlarger PRO is the better buy. Given how well-known Genuine Fractals is, this was a surprise finish we certainly couldn't predict.
Anne Violette is a freelance writer and photographer in Delray Beach, Florida. Find her at http://www.ifreelance.com/pro/24979 or http://www.photomaine.com.
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