If you’ve ever had to work with an undersized image file – either in print or on the web – you know how frustrating it can be. Sometimes clients have only one image that was taken on a 1 megapixel camera that they think they just can’t live without, and suddenly it’s up to you to figure out how to make it look like something other than a bad joke. Enter Blow Up 2, from Alien Skin. I’ve been a fan of Alien Skin since I first got their Black Box plug-in for Photoshop in the latter half of the 90s. Suddenly I was able to do all these effects in a single click, that would otherwise have taken me many steps and a lot more time.
Blow Up 2 comes with many presets for creating the best enlargement possible, and allows you to tweak settings and come up with your own. It also supports the CMYK color space, since you’re probably going to want to print your results. In addition to print, it comes in very handy when you need to make more legible versions of those awful thumbnail images your client sent you and swears are the only copies.
I used to use Genuine Fractals when I needed to enlarge images, but the pro version of Genuine Fractals (with CMYK support) is $299.95 while Blow Up 2 is $249.00. I did some tests with the example materials Alien Skin provides, including an image of a ladybug. I blew it up and printed it out, along with the original sized image for comparison. The results were quite impressive. I’d say for image quality the two plug-ins tied, but Genuine Fractals’ file size was smaller, so it took the edge. On the other hand, the Blow Up 2 file had better contrast, while the Genuine Fractals version had richer colors in the ladybug’s wings. Unfortunately, those images are huge, so you’re going to have to try this for yourself.
However, Blow Up 2 seems better optimized for enlarging graphics destined for the web. The examples below show the results achieved by both plug-ins
Some things like the eyelashes look a little odd, like a stylized illustration. But that’s the case with both plug-ins. From my experience, both seem better for print than web or digital display. Blow Up 2 has more control over settings, enabling you to fine tune and tweak the most from your images. It also comes preset with many options for resizing images for the web. So if you’re a web designer with that requirement, choosing Blow Up 2 is a no-brainer. And if you’re looking to enlarge images for print, the $50 savings on Blow Up 2 also gives it an edge over Genuine Fractals. Download the trials and see for yourself.