FIXERLABS SizeFixer SLR review

Verdict:

Review Date: 20 Jan 2005

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Cliff Joseph

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Most photo-editing programs, such as Paint Shop Pro and the Photoshop range, have a resizing option that allows you to increase the size of a photo.

This is often useful as it allows you to magnify specific details within the photo or to increase its size to a particular format, such as an A3 poster print.

Yet this often results in a loss of quality, so there's a small selection of specialised tools such as SizeFixer SLR, which claim to increase a photo in size without this loss of quality.

Its most well-known rival is probably Extensis' SmartScale, which claims to increase image size up to 1,600 per cent, but this gives mixed results. SizeFixer provides a more modest 400 per cent increase and it works quite well. We scaled an image to 200, 300 and 400 per cent of its original size, using both Photoshop and SizeFixer, and SizeFixer produced better results at all sizes, but the difference between the two programs became less obvious as we approached the 400 per cent mark.

We also noticed a number of limitations. There's no batch processing option, so you have to resize images individually. The developers also recommend that you try and work mainly with uncompressed TIFF files, rather than compressed JPEG files, as these files commonly have artefacts that worsen when the image is resized. The program also works best with images taken from higher-quality digital cameras that embed detailed EXIF (exchange image format) data within each image, as this provides SizeFixer with information about the type of lens used by the camera.

Those requirements, and the £175 price, mean that SizeFixer is very much a tool for the professional designer or photographer. However, it could still earn its keep very quickly if it allows you to complete a particular job on time.

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