Genuine Fractals 6.0 Pro aperture plugin

I have been trying the trial version.

The "promised" feature set appealed to me since I do a lot of large format printing.
A decent enlarging plugin in Aperture would really make my day, as it would be one less reason to launch Photoshop.
Additionally the Gallery Wrap feature sounded very nice and convenient, I now do this manually in Photoshop.

The Onone website does not mention this anywhere, but the Aperture plugin is crippled in that it does not have the Gallery Wrap feature...and the tiling feature if you are into that, so it has even less features than the standard version.

Furthermore, I think they have processed their own pricelist with this particular plugin.
The Pro version (which does not have any of the promised Pro features in the Aperture plugin) is priced more expensive than it's host application Aperture, and if I need to make a trip to Photoshop anyway to do what I need to do, I might as well use what Photoshop has built in.
Bicubic smoother is no worse in quality than what I saw from the Genuine Fractals plugin.

Considering my line of work, I am part of the (small) target market for this plugin, and considering what I learned from trying this plugin, I'm sure there are better ways to spend $299

I have not tested GF in any version. However, I find that Pages does a very good job for any images I need to upsize for very large printing. If taken to third party printers, I export the resized image as a PDF, btw. This does require setting up Custom paper sizes to use as the canvas for this task. I know that I can use Photoshop, but somehow I like doing it with Pages better.

Ernie

@Ernie: It's good that you're happy with the results but as far as I know Pages doesn't do any sort of serious interpolation which is what this plugin brings to the plate (as does photoshop).

I have GF as part of the PhotoSuite bundle which makes the price a bit more attractive than purchased on its own (although still pretty expensive).

I've compared with Bicubic Smoother and - personally - find GF better for my needs.
The odd thing about the Aperture version though (beyond the crippled features) is the fact that you can't do batch editing. This is the one feature that every other Aperture plugin includes when compared to their Photoshop version - but not GF6!

It's made the upgrade a lot less useful than it could've been. A shame.

Jade,

It is my opinion that Pages does do some serious interpolation. My reasoning stems from the fact that the larger image (as inspected in a resulting PDF) appears to retain the original ppi, and when opened in Photoshop must be rasterized.

Perhaps I am missing that Photoshop, in rasterizing the PDF, is actually doing the interpolation? The resulting file is not larger, however?

Ernie

Hi Ernie,

Your last assumption is the correct one. When opening in photoshop, the rasterizing dialog is doing the interpolation.
The fact that your pages pdf is not significantly larger in size than your original image means no interpolation has taken place.

The same would be when you resize in photoshop with resampling turned off. You can upsize an image to any dimension, but the image dpi decreases by doing so...
By keeping a constant dpi and upsizing, every pixel needs to be re-mapped to a new area and spread out/interpolated, which increases filesize... because the file effectively holds more pixels.

What I meant was that when Saved in Photoshop (again as a PDF) after rasterizing, the file is not larger than the original PDF created by Export from Pages. In fact it is actually a bit smaller!

Ernie

Message was edited by: Ernie Stamper

Viskwal,

I just did a different test with Pages. I opened a Pages layout document with a default 8.5 x 11 template. I dragged a JPEG image onto the template, but did not resize the image -- exported as PDF, and opened with Photoshop CS3 -- no rasterizing was required. Then with the same Pages document, I resized the original JPEG image, and then Exported that as a newly named PDF file. When that file was opened with PS CS3, it was required to be rasterized. Although the second PDF was only modestly larger than the first one, it seems that Pages imparted the "vector info" to explain the resizing, and PS CS3 used that.

Furthermore, when each image (after the PDF was opened) and Saved As a TIFF, both were 300 ppi, but the one where enlargement in Pages took place before Export as PDF becomes a much larger TIFF file than the former.

It would appear to me that Pages is providing an upsizing service that results in interpolation at some point, through some form of vector graphic info, even though using a constant canvas size.

Ernie

Ernie, I can assure you pages does not do resampling.

You are confusing a few things, but if you are happy with enlargements made in pages that's ok, isn't it.
You could have equaly used the books feature inside aperture, it does the same kind of upsizing.... but it is not resampling.

I don't believe I ever said that Pages resampled? My use of "interpolation" may have implied that, but I think I was clear in my opinion that enlargement resulted from some form of vector graphics, which the need to rasterize any exported PDF where the image size has been changed after insertion into the layout canvas confirms.

As I understand it, upsampling should be avoided if possible. I believe what takes place in Pages (and Keynote) is a bit like Photoshop uses in the Transform commands, but I am not certain of that.

My enlargements with Pages are very pleasing, but generally start with high resolution photos such as can be taken with a Nikon D300 beginning as RAW masters. I also find the addition of Text to the canvas to printed quite handy in Pages. My most recent use was with an image that resulted from a Photomerge in PS CS3, and imported back into Aperture as a TIFF, where after cropping was 6234 x 2393 pixels, and I wanted to print it as an image that was 15 x 36 inches, approx. The printed results were excellent and compared well with any view on my 23" CD.

All the best,

Ernie

@ Ernie - sorry to threadjack Proggie but Ernie has me interested

Ernie, could you expand on your workflow in the Photomerge example you gave in the last thread. Once you are back in Aperture with the merged TIFF, what exactly did you do in Pages. Was it just a case of creating a new canvas size in Pages, dragging and resizing the TIFF into Pages, then exporting as a PDF?

Thanks

FlatE 🙂

FlatE,

I had a number of photos taken in candlelight in a project in Aperture, some of which resulted from panning from side to side. I chose two that were taken seconds apart, and sent them to Photoshop to be merged into a panorama. Since Photomerge in PS does not make either of the original images the resultant, I had to save the panorama as a new image (TIFF in this case), and Import it back into Aperture for further editing. The primary retouching I wanted to then do in Aperture was to use Noise Ninja, which I have only set up as a plugin in Aperture, even though I have the license to set it up as stand alone or as a plugin to PS. I simply chose to not do much editing to the original images, but rather to wait for the merged panorama.

I then chose Pages because I trusted both its resizing ability and ease to add text below the photo as a title when printed. I felt more confident to take a PDF to the outside printing service, than a pure photo format. Obviously I could have stayed in Photoshop if I had set Noise Ninja up to use there after the merge but I like the editing of shading in Aperture better than in Photoshop, these days. Btw, I exported the retouched panorama from Aperture before dragging it into Pages. This was not a workflow for a mass of images, but one special one.

Ernie

Ernie

Excellent stuff, thanks for that. I'm always pleased to find different ways around needing Photoshop, I spend most of my time in Aperture these days, saving a round trip to Photoshop for any heavy lifting. I had never really considered using Pages as part of a photographic workflow, but since reading your post have become interested in the quick and easy possibilities it offers.

Thanks again

FlatE 🙂