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This article is from November 2, 2010, and is no longer current.

AKVIS Magnifier 4.0: Change Image Size Without Quality Loss

Press Release
AKVIS announces the release of AKVIS Magnifier v.4.0 for Windows and Macintosh, an efficient tool for resizing digital images. Featuring advanced photo resizing algorithms, AKVIS Magnifier enlarges digital pictures to super-high resolution producing stunning enlargements and poster-size prints. In the latest version its ability to make reduced images of high quality has been greatly improved. The program is available as a plugin to a photo editor, as well as a standalone edition.
AKVIS Magnifier makes it easy for anyone to produce professional-looking enlargements out of digital images. The product is available for both Windows and Mac.
AKVIS Magnifier allows you to resize images without visible loss in quality. If you attempt to blow up a picture (increase its resolution) using the standard Resize command of a photo editor, you will notice that the resulting photo is blurred and pixelated. This is because the small photo didn’t contain enough information to create a larger version. AKVIS Magnifier can cope with this problem and deliver good results.
Resizing pictures with AKVIS Magnifier yields a much higher quality than simple bicubic interpolation. Depending on the task at hand, AKVIS Magnifier can be fine-tuned to produce images that look exactly as required for a given purpose. The software allows you to enlarge an image to a super-high resolution of up to 30000×30000 pixels, making a 100×100 inch (2.5×2.5 meter) poster easily printable at a typographic quality of 300dpi.
Whether creating poster-size images, adding resolution for printing an enlargement, or reducing image size, AKVIS Magnifier will make your prints look sharper and better defined.
In Version 4.0 of AKVIS Magnifier the parameters for processing images are divided into two groups: those which reduce an image (a new parameter to control image clarity), and those which increase an image (all other parameters).
In previous versions, Magnifier’s smart enlarging algorithm was great at enlarging images, but its ability to reduce images was about the same as other programs.
Version 4.0 introduces an advanced algorithm for reducing images. The new Sharpness parameter improves the clarity of images by increasing the color contrast of neighboring pixels. Now images can be reduced and placed in your online photo album without a loss in detail and with an improvement in quality.
AKVIS Magnifier is available as a standalone application as well as a Photoshop plugin. The plugin version of Magnifier is compatible with Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. In Photoshop the Magnifier plugin (called via the Automate menu) supports Batch Processing that allows you to automatically convert a series of images. Just create an action in Photoshop and apply the plug-in with the same settings to a folder full of images.
AKVIS Magnifier runs on Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/Win7 and on Macintosh Mac OS X 10.4-10.6, both 32 bit and 64 bit.
For a free trial, AKVIS offers 10 days of fully functional use. Download AKVIS Magnifier v.4.0
The registered users of Magnifier can update their version for free.
AKVIS Magnifier Home License (Plugin or Standalone) sells for $ 129 USD or 99 Euro, downloadable from https://akvis.com. Home users can enjoy the full line of AKVIS software (14 products) in the AKVIS Alchemy bundle for $325 USD. For Business licenses, consult the official website. One license key allows activating the software on two computers, for example, on a desktop and a laptop.

James Fritz is a Principal Program Manager: Content Tools and Workflows at LinkedIn.
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