Participant

Answered

Photoshop 100% 72dpi is too small on Mac Retina Display

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
February 7, 2015
12 replies
24258 views

I see a lot of threads about this.

Well, the other day I actually had a tech from Adobe on the line, and after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, he admitted, "It's a Photoshop issue".

Apparently they are looking into it, just not quick enough. It is unfortunate because it seriously affects our ability to work effectively in Photoshop as you don't get the mostly accurate visual sizing.

We can only hope... Come on Adobe, FIX IT!!!

Correct answer D Fosse

The image is not "too small" - your screen has more pixels, therefore smaller pixels, therefore higher resolution. That's the whole point of a Retina display!

100% simply means that one image pixel is represented by one screen pixel. 1:1. Now consider what that means.

UI scaling, however, is a different matter. But that doesn't affect the image display.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Wow, this thread just does not seem to want to stop …

K

keano1234

Participant

As a photographer I uploaded a 900px wide image. I was shocked. I was retouching in PS in hi res. It looked great. When I uploaded to the web it was a let down. Soft and meh. When I viewed the same image on my iPhone 7 it looked great again?? Wouldn't it look crap on my iPhone too?

Like someone said when I viewed the image at 200% it looked like what I saw on the web. Not great.

rob day

Community Expert

Like someone said when I viewed the image at 200% it looked like what I saw on the web. Not great.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but you have to address the resolution variables from the HTML/CSS coding side. Search for something like hidpi media query and you'll find coding solutions like this:

Retina Display Media Query | CSS-Tricks

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

I think the text rasterisation might be the big issue.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Yeah, but still - the text will be rasterized to the document resolution sooner or later anyway. By the time it hits any web browser it will be well and truly rasterized. So again, same thing.

It's been demonstrated here before that Photoshop's 200% scaling is a perfectly clean 1:4 remapping. So yes, of course it will be pixelated when screen resolution suddenly drops to half.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

Just view at 200%

A

auxiliaryjoel

Inspiring

view at 200% makes all the text look disgusting and headache inducing. That's not an option.

BUT..... I did find a suggestion from another forum:

in Photoshop: Make a Keyboard shortcut for View / Print Size. And then in your Photoshop prefs / Units&Dimensions: Change "screen resolution" to a size that makes "Print Size" scale on your screen to the same size that the image will appear once viewed inside a web browser. For me, this 'screen resolution' was 144. I haven't trialed this too much yet, but the big win so far is that the text does not look all pixelated.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Ah, the wonderful power of psychology...those two are exactly the same thing. Both end up as View > 200%.

Furthermore: Photoshop at 200% and your web browser both do the same thing. They display one image pixel as four screen pixels. That's it, no more and no less. Any perceived difference is in your mind.

The one possible difference is that Photoshop always renders text rasterized to the document resolution, even if the text itself is vector.

K

keano1234

Participant

I noticed this to also. Personally I prefer to see the image as it looks in a web browser. I understand the retina points. For myself with mobile I design in sketch at @1. So when it comes to a bitmap I treat them as such separately. In PS I notice it designs at full scale not @1. So the it makes sense if.... you want to design that way.

I like the solution about opening Get Info and lower resolution. I just don't like how the text on the frame surrounding is blurry as noted.

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auxiliaryjoel

Inspiring

is there any solution to this idiocy yet? I don't care about retina, 72pixels at 100% screen view is what matters for web developers, reverting that to actually being 200% zoom view is dumb. Is there a way to fix this in Photoshop CC?

up209d

Participant

Instead of zoom 200% which provides unclear and unsharp text, vector image & shape. You can:

Turn the DPI of the file from 72 to 144 in photoshop and then when needed just export back to 72dpi image for normal web using. So by doing that, you can have the feeling of working in the right size. A drawback is that it might be bloody heavy due to dealing with double number of pixels.

D Fosse

Community Expert

So instead of a simple view setting, you want to destructively resample the file, twice?

Listen, everybody: View > 200% is what all those other applications/viewers/web browsers do. But they don't call it that - they just do it, without telling you. Photoshop gives you a heads up about what actually goes on, and also gives you the option to display accurately (100%).

gener7

Community Expert

If you own a Retina display, you can set Photoshop to open in low resolution where it will display images as before.

Cmd i (Get Info) on Photoshop.app.

It's one way to design for low resolution monitors if you do not want the 200% zoom method or increasing your web design files 2x.

maorbane

Participant

i've found a simple solution that helped me.

go to Edit > Keyboard shortcuts

and replace Cmnd + 1 to apply Zoom 200% instead of 100%.

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titucusi

Participant

I have contacted ADOBE, (August 10) and yes they are working on the problem, they said, will be cleared by next update. reveeryrugby i'm having the same problem, tech said to work at 200% for now. It does not help but we need to keep on working.

If you found a work around let me know. If not let us just wait.

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Test Screen Name

Legend

I don't understand why 200% isn't the solution, the complete solution. I don't on this occasion want to get into an argument, I'd just like to understand why working at 200% is any kind of issue.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Test Screen Name wrote:
I don't understand why 200% isn't the solution, the complete solution. I don't on this occasion want to get into an argument, I'd just like to understand why working at 200% is any kind of issue.

There's nothing to understand. 200% is the solution, the full and complete solution - if you want to see it as people with traditional displays see it. It effectively turns a 3840 x 2160 display into a 1920 x 1080 one.

This is how it will be for the foreseeable future. Of course, when we all have UHD displays, web designers will just start to design with more pixels, and thus the whole issue would seem to disappear. Except - what about all the existing web pages designed for 1920 x 1080? So it'll be with us for a while.

The big mystery to me is this: Why is the simple relationship between screen pixels and display size so hard to grasp, for so many people? It's so obvious and intuitive. More pixels per square unit = smaller display size. What's so difficult? I don't get it.

corinmcdonald

Participant

I just upgraded to a new MBP retina and was kinda blown away by the photoshop issue. My question is why does Illustrator display accurate sizing? When you view a 500x500 pixel image in Illustrator its true to size as what the rest of the world sees online (but not photoshop)?

Here's what seems to work for me until things get resolved from Adobe. See screen capture. Funny thought that when I open a screen grab now that is taken on a retina, the image opens up as 144dpi.

I totally hear the frustration and its VALID. Until we move on from a 72dpi world, don't EFF with it...Apple and Adobe.