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Jim239090900pzf
Participating Frequently
September 11, 2026
Question

Photoshop 'Pixelating' Web Images (v27x)

  • September 11, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 39 views

Have Photoshop 27.10.0 on Windows 10 Pro, AMD RYZEN 5.  Recently, resizing and exporting any types of raster images are coming out very “pixelated” (looking like old-school 80’s low-rez images!)

I tried turning back to v27.9.0, same thing.  Searched online, found that I should make sure that under Preferences > General tab, that “Image Interpolation” should be set to “Bicubic Automatic” or “Bicubic Sharper” to fix that issue.  Tried both settings - no luck.  Tried changing to “Bicubic Smoother”, still the same, crappy results.

Is there some manual “reset” I need to do (like Command-line code, or going into some buried subfolder and deleting some reference file or something) to stop this from happening?  It’s making my web images look horrible!

Sample

From 2024:
 

Now:
 

 

    3 replies

    caring_Flutterb421
    caring_Flutterb421
    Participant
    September 12, 2026

    I’d check the resizing/export process before assuming the preferences are corrupted. In Image > Image Size, make sure Resample is enabled and try Bicubic Sharper (reduction) or Automatic. Also make sure Nearest Neighbor isn’t being used, since that will intentionally create a pixelated result.

    I’d also check Image > Mode and confirm the document is RGB Color, not Indexed Color or Bitmap.

    As a quick diagnostic, export the same image as both JPEG and PNG and compare them at 100% zoom. If the PNG looks clean but the JPEG looks blocky, it’s likely an export/compression setting rather than Photoshop’s interpolation.

    If the problem happens even when you’re not resizing, then I’d try resetting Photoshop’s preferences as a troubleshooting step. That would help determine whether this is a Photoshop settings issue or something specific to the source/export workflow.

    If you can share the original pixel dimensions → resized dimensions → export format/settings, we can probably narrow down exactly where the pixelation is being introduced.

    Jim239090900pzfAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 14, 2026

    Okay, have it set for “Bicubic Automatic”:

    It defaults when I create a new file as “RGB” to make it 8-bits - which is what I’ve used 100-times before:

    My resizing is done in the document - it’s when I make a smaller image file (when I create the width x height at 72dpi so the finished product exports to the correct size)

    Case in point - the logo from before: original as a .png at 658 x 371, open it up…

    Opens, looks fine in photoshop:

    Export that, looks fine (turned off transparency so it shows better in the preview):

    Reduce the size during export - still looks clean:

     

    Now I create a new file at 125 x 71:

    Copy & Paste the .eps into this new file and use the handles to make it fit in the document size:

    I commit the transformation, and both the preview in photoshop and the export is greatly pixelated:

     

    This is how I’ve been doing images since Day 1 with Photoshop and never had this result.  What am I doing wrong?

    (BTW, this is just a basic example - usually, I size the image to something like 520 pixels wide by whatever height, and then I place multiple cropped images in and export the finished collage for a web image).

    Srishti Bali
    Community Manager
    Srishti BaliCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    October 6, 2026

    Hi ​@Jim239090900pzf 

     

    Based on the screenshots, this appears to be expected behavior, as the image is being scaled down to ~80%.

    However, to reconfirm and investigate this further, I would request that you share a video showing your complete workflow, along with the sample files you are using. This will help us better understand the behavior and verify it on our end.

    Thanks, Srishti Bali | Community & Engagement Strategist, Digital Imaging | Adobe
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