Well, we’ve all seen the advert, but that’s not what I want to 
talk about, so get that out of your head straight away. No, let’s
think about what many call the “Queen of Arts” - namely painting.

Have you ever wandered around a huge Art Gallery and marvelled 
at the works by Tintoretto, Raphael, Constable or any master 
painter who has produced huge canvasses?  Then again, we have 
many fine examples of beautiful artwork in cameos and miniatures. 
In fact, in all sizes between these two extremes the evidence of 
creative genius can be found down through the ages. 

However, it’s patently obvious that the correlation between size 
and creative genius is poor. Mere size on the premise, “never 
mind the quality feel the width” is not the prime element of a 
masterpiece. Yes we are fascinated by the Sistine Chapel, for 
example, by the sheer scale of the paintings, but it’s the genius
of the painter that draws the eye. It’s also true though that 
the artist tugs at our heartstrings by the wealth of detail that 
working in a large format permits.

In the same way, large format and medium format cameras have
traditionally been the working tools of professional 
photographers for many, many years. In a previous article, I 
suggested that there would always be room for film, especially 
for users of the larger formats.

Now, we get to the nub of the matter, because in digital 
parlance, the wealth of detail evident in the larger formats is 
expressed as the size of the file. Unlike physical dimensions 
which cannot be changed once the work has been committed to the 
recording medium, be it film or indeed canvas size, the digital 
file is not so restricted.

Of course, when image size is changed from the original during, 
say, image compression, there is generally a loss in quality 
e.g. jpeg Even the use of a lossless transformation doesn’t add 
anything to the image, it merely preserves what’s there.

However, there is a revolutionary item of image manipulation 
software that does totally “change the picture” It comes as a 
Photoshop plug-in with Photoshop 6.0 or higher and it’s called 
“Genuine Fractals” and here is what the originators claim,

   “It’s an indispensable tool for photographers, graphic artists
   and digital imaging  professionals, Genuine Fractals enables 
   you to create resolution-independent images from any size 
   file and lets you print superior quality enlargements without 
   any degradation in image quality”

By saving your digital image with this package as a very small 
stn file, you can create lossless files of up to 70Mb and beyond. 
After saving and re-opening this file in Photoshop,  Genuine 
Fractal kicks in and you can easily produce files of a specified 
size

I was stunned by this software and began to wonder what the 
impact might be for both digital photographers and medium/large 
format professionals.  Of course, as already stated, this 
increased size does NOT put extra information into the shot. 
There again, neither does making a 67 dupe of a 35mm slide 
improve image quality and many photographers still do that 
when submitting to libraries.

Digital photographers may get even more benefits by beefing 
up the file size using Genuine Fractals, before printing out 
enlargements. This could be very useful for Wedding Photographers
who want the convenience of using a digital camera, but are 
unhappy about the quality of enlargements often requested. Using 
Genuine Fractals may save time effort and money by eliminating 
the need for a film backup camera.

On the other hand, it may be that Genuine Fractals may produce 
the best result with photos captured from film and then scanned, 
because noise in the original image is not removed when enlarged,
in fact it will be more obvious. This means that mid-range 
digital camera shots are likely to fare worse on enlargment 
than film shots captured with 10 million pixels+

With a new version Genuine Fractals 3.5 just released, it could 
be worth a test and could be a worthwhile investment too. So, 
if you want to explore this a little more, get a copy of Amateur 
Photographer for 23 October 2004 and read their review of this 
exciting software.

You can get a free test copy of the software itself from this 
link:

   http://www.dcp-systems.co.uk

Why bother with a medium format camera if 35mm caressed by 
this Software will do instead? Oh I know I’ll get lectures from 
purists for even suggesting something so daft, given superior 
lenses and better optics, but for some people that may be just 
overkill. If this article has opened up the possibility of a 
better working method for some freelances, that’s all that 
matters.

So don’t please run around telling your mates that size does 
not matter and that I’ve assigned medium format cameras to the 
dustbin of history. No, I’m just shining the spotlight on that 
funny old coin digital/film and giving it a flick in the air. 
Who knows how it will land? At least I’ve got a 50-50 chance 
of being right!