14 DAY TRIAL // When working with digital images, many times, one hits the hard barrier, the pixel. There is nothing for it, when you need 1280 square, and what you have is 640 square you are going to end up with pixels. And that's a happy case? If you need just a piece of an image, and need to make it say 4 times bigger, you know it's going to look like pixel art. Sure, these days we have fancy enlargement algorithms like Bi-Cubic, but it just doesn't cut it. In the old days, when film was still predominant, you could blow up bits of an image while still preserving a decent amount of detail but now, many images end up getting scrapped because they are simply not big enough. And heaven forbid you actually need to do printing, because then things are really bad for you.
There are still things that can be done, top of the range programs, clever manipulation and the application of many filters and tweaks, but there is still so much even they can't do. And the time, knowledge and processing power required to turn up decent results are more often than not beyond the reach of the vast majority of tasks? But it doesn't have to be that way.
Enlarger PRO is an apparently simple application, easy to overlook, but what it does is nothing short of amazing.
Enlarge it Most programs, even the cutting edge Photoshop, cannot enlarge with accuracy beyond 200 percent. The image starts getting pixilated or blurry. As pixels are exploded into more pixels, details start fading, and getting washed out, edges are no longer sharp and clear and the texture of materials starts melting away into nothingness. And this is at only a measly 2X magnification.
Since printing is done at a normal setting of 300 DPI, and computers work with a 72 DPI resolution, you already have quite an offset to overcome, and what is full screen on your computer will not be any bigger than a snapshot when printed. Sure, you can make it bigger but then the quality starts leaving the picture and you are left with the shadow of an image.
In contrast to other applications, Enlarger PRO actually starts at 200 percent as the smallest magnification that you can do with it. It chews through this 2x magnification as if it were nothing, and delivers great quality. But that's nothing really? the big whooper, and what really sold this program for me was the 16x magnification I did of a 106x106 icon. That's right, 16X, 16 times enlargement, from 106 square to 1 696 square. The results? Nothing short of astounding.
Quality is the key The only thing this program will not do to your images is invent details which are not there. That's normal, you can't ask it to add to a picture, but you can ask it not to take anything away, and it will do just that.
The revolutionary algorithms employed by Enlarger PRO will keep the sharp areas sharp, never blurring or fading edges and sharp contrasts. Other methods of enlarging will add pixels which, with ever step of magnification will fade the edges, but not this program. It is also protective of small details, which usually get faded into the background. With Enlarger PRO, those little details will remain there, clear and distinct.
Even at the lowest possible magnification handled by the program, the differences are visible and striking. Traditional enlargements is too pixilated, and unusable for any kind of quality printing work. Bi-Cubic enlargement is better than the traditional method by leaps and bounds, but still not quite up to par because of the overall grainier look and softer edges.
Using it To say Enlarger PRO is easy to use is an understatement. So much so that in fact, many might feel a bit frustrated with it because of the lack of controls and settings. All you do is feed it an image, or images, specify the desired magnification and the location where you would like it to place the enlarged versions. A very point and click approach, but it delivers such great results that there really is nothing to complain about.
The only downside to the program is how ravenous it is when it comes to resources. It takes everything it can get and still takes quite a long time to blow something up to 16x. Of course, the bigger the initial image is, the longer it will take, and it can easily go to the order of hours. Then again, it is spending that time well so you get what you wait for.
The Good Unparalleled image enlargement quality, that can go up to as much as 16x without sacrificing print quality and any of the details. Point and click ease of use.
The Bad Not really a bad thing, but rather a natural consequence of the algorithms it uses, is the amount of time it takes to enlarge an image.
The Truth A picture is worth a thousand words... so just check out the screenshots for a glimpse at what this program can do.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge, and bear in mind that the images are bigger than normal and optimized for the web:
