BenVista PhotoZoom Pro 2

 

As you probably know, it is quite simple to use any decent image editing program to reduce a photograph and make it smaller without sacrificing image quality, but enlarging one presents a number of challenges that can be difficult to overcome, usually resulting in an out-of-focus, low-quality image with plenty of JPEG artifacts and serrated edges. There are a number of software programs on the market however that claim to enlarge images without lowering the image quality, and we decided to put one of them to the test. Several of our regular visitors have been using PhotoZoom Pro 2 by BenVista, and this review is in response to a suggestion from one of them. It took all of 30 seconds to install and "unlock" the program, and using it turned out to be just as simple... First, I opened a JPEG image featuring a pair of flags that had been reduced in size from the original down to 300 x 400 pixels with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Leaving all of the default settings intact, I set the "New Width" field to 575 pixels, almost doubling the size of the image. After the program automatically adjusted the vertical height to maintain the current aspect ratio, I sat back and watched in amazement as a horizontal line descended across the image and left a very good enlarged version in its wake. (see the before and after photos below)   Original image at 300 x 400 pixels. The same image after enlarging to 575 x 767 pixels with PhotoZoom Pro 2. Next, I loaded another image, this one straight from a Canon point-and-shoot digicam at a resolution of 2816 x 2112 pixels. After choosing a new width of 10,000 pixels, PhotoZoom Pro 2 once again worked its magic, resulting in a 5000 x 3750 image that was just as good as the original. And that was still with the program's default settings intact! I repeated my tests using about a dozen photos varying in size from 600 x 480 all the way up to poster-sized images, and I got the same great results every time. There is one caveat however: PhotoZoom Pro 2 cannot turn a bad photo into a good one, and the images that started out with poor quality were still of poor quality after being enlarged, but this was to be expected. After all, no software program can create image detail out of thin air, but I can tell you that PhotoZoom Pro 2 did exactly what it claims to do (make high-quality enlargements) and it did it extremely well. Here are a few of PhotoZoom Pro 2's most important functions and features: Patented S-Spline and S-Spline XL technology Built-in presets for different types of images Fine-tuning tools: create your own presets Large preview window with advanced crop tool Resizes images up to 1 million by 1 million pixels - no restrictions! Batch conversion: resize huge amounts of images in one go Preserves EXIF and IPTC info, ICC profiles Works both as a standalone application and as a plugin within Adobe Photoshop (also CS3) Universal standalone application & plugin: runs at full speed on both PowerPC and Intel based Macs Fully compatible with Windows(R) Vista(R) and Mac(R) OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Conclusion: BenVista PhotoZoom Pro 2 is a powerful image enlargement utility that performs extremely well at even the default settings, and it surely belongs in your photo editing toolbox right alongside PhotoShop, Elements or whatever you use for your day-to-day photo editing tasks. To download a fully-functional evaluation copy of PhotoZoom Pro 2, simply visit www.benvista.com and click on the "Download" tab.