I'm thinking about buying Perfect Resize to enlarge all types of images, specially photographs. I'm planning to do so mostly for high quality prints.
I've been using Photoshop all my life to do that task but I have tried the trial version of Perfect Resize and there is a visible difference on the enlarged images, but I sincerely can't tell if it's better.
Does it enlarge images better than Photoshop?
I did some very very simple print testing once and to my eyes the Perfect Resize results were better than Photoshop and LR resizing or than simply printing at lower DPI.
That said, modern cameras have enough resolution for my prints that are not larger than 13x19" and I continue printing directly from LR.
Well, Why dont you download it and try it for free? You can use it for 30 days free of charge. https://www.on1.com/dl/21/
In any case, this algorithms does a better job than bicubic in some cases, where the shape is well defined, like the borders of a building or the leaf of a tree. (In my examples, the teeth or the border of the face against the black dress) But is not that impressive.
There are some other programs that you can try. Some offer a trial version with a watermark, like Benvista PhotoZoom.
(This are old tests, but gives you an idea. I will update the tests another time)
1) Nearest neighbour
2) Irfanview, Lanczos Filter (Simmilar to bicubic)
3) PhotoZoom
4) Reshade
I normally would recomend that you ONLY resample an image to a round number. 200%, and in rare cases 300% max.
