I finally got a chance to explore Alien Skin Software‘s new release of Blow Up. I have to say, I’m impressed! The interface has gotten much nicer, and is simpler to understand. And, I’ve been told the image quality is even sharper than the previous version. “Our best achievement in Blow Up 3 is image sharpness,” said Terence Tay, the designer of Blow Up. “Even huge prints don’t have any traditional computery artifacts.”

If you’re not familiar with Blow Up, it’s a plugin that runs from within Photoshop, and sharpens your images for print based on a number of variables (size, paper type). And, with version three, it now works with Lightroom! The plugin runs within Photoshop (CS4+, Elements 8+) and Lightroom (2+); you’ll need to make sure your system meets these requirements:

• Microsoft Windows users need Windows Vista or later.
• Apple Macintosh users need Mac OS X 10.6 or later.
• An Intel Core 2 processor or compatible is required.
• A monitor with 1024×768 resolution or greater is required.

The installation process is simple and painless. Just download the setup file and run the installation. Once installed, you’ll need to open Photoshop. To access the plug-in, you’ll need to go to File > Automate > Blow Up 3. You do need to have an image already open in Photoshop in order to access the interface.

Using Blow Up 3 with Lightroom works in a similar fashion… except that Blow Up 3 is run from Lightroom as an external editor. You launch Blow Up by selecting an image (or multiple images), then going to Photo > Edit In > Blow Up 3 (you can access this by right-clicking on any of the images). The developers recommend that you have Lightroom “Edit a Copy with Lightroom Adjustments” when using Blow Up.

From here on out, the experience is pretty much the same, except for the fact that Lightroom users can open multiple images in the interface, while Photoshop users must open each image individually. This next screenshot shows the Blow Up 3 interface. There are three main tabs – you can crop, resize, or stretch the image to fit our desired output size.

The document size dropdown includes photographic print sizes (i.e. 8×10, 30×40), square sizes, etc — these will use Smart Crop technology; or, you can do a custom crop by dragging the crop marks on the image with the crop tool.

Enlargement tuning will “activate” once you select a output size; you can tweak the settings if you want. You’ll also want to make sure to set the output medium to screen, photographic print (matte, luster, or glossy). I chose medium sharpening for my comparison example, which I’ll show you a close-up of in one minute. Note that you can also save custom settings so that you can streamline your workflow! Here’s a screenshot of the dialog box for creating a new custom setting.

Ok, and now for the big finale. Here’s an image that I had edited and prepped for print already. No sharpening was applied before using Blow Up. I tested the 30×40 enlargement option, with medium sharpening, and here is the comparison at 100% zoom:

While I expected good things, I was definitely impressed! Now, if there is any way to batch multiple images with Blow Up 3 using Photoshop (like you can do in Lightroom) — I would totally use this as a tool for prepping all my client orders. Between the vastly improved user interface and the blow away results you can achieve with this plugin, I’m sold. If you’re interested in trying out this software for yourself, Blow Up 3 is available through alienskin.com for $199 USD. There are a number of video tutorials you can view to get a feel for how the plug-in works in more detail.