Genuine Fractals is a Photoshop plugin that lets you blowup pictures to sizes you couldn't attain normally. We're glad to see significant improvements in version 5, a real step up from the previous iteration.

Images can now be scaled up 1,000% thanks to a new algorithm, although you'll get excellent results at 500 or 600. We also see big improvements in the interface, which looks much sleeker and blends in particularly well to Photoshop CS3's look. The plugin works faster, 10 times as much claims the developer. You'll find significant upgrades in the tools and features of Genuine Fractals like robust layer support, new sharpening and film grain. The plugin also adds built-in sharpening to improve scaled images.

Most of the new features are a improvement, however we did feel that Genuine Fractals did not handle semi-transparent areas and hard edges as well as we'd expect. The only real drawback of the plugin is its price though. At 143,95 Euros it's a really expensive investment to make just for a plugin.

Version 5 of Genuine Fractals is a significant upgrade with better scaling, more features and a sleeker interface. It doesn't come cheap though.