Question

Upscaling in export settings

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
January 22, 2026
2 replies
137 views

I have a 1920x1080 sequence that's filled with UHD footage scaled to 50%. If I export this sequence at 3840x2160 will I essentially be getting that footage rendered at 100% or will there be a drop-off in quality?

Footage is of multiple codecs, but primarily AVC, MXF op-1a 4:2:2 10 bits

S

Sumeet_Kumar_Choubey

Adobe Employee

Hi cooperecc,

Welcome to the community! As suggested by our experts. If you are working with 4K media & eventually you want to export in 4K, it will be better to keep your sequence at 4K. You can always downscale a 4K sequence to a 1080p export in the Export Settings.

Thanks,

Sumeet

Averdahl

Community Expert

There will be a drop in quality. You scale down 4K to 1920x1080 and then scale up from 1920x1080 to 4K when you export.

I would work in a 4K timeline instead of a 1920x1080 timeline if all your source footage is 4K.

C

coopereccAuthor

Thanks! A redditor told me I could make the 4k timeline and use an adjustment layer to scale to 200% . Thoughts?

Averdahl

Community Expert

If i apply scale to an Adjustment layer nothing happens to the clip/s under it.

All scaling, up or down, is destructive and will degrade the quality in some way. Scaling down and then scale up again when exporting will definitely degrade the quality. There is no way around that and there is no magic trick that will not make that happen.

Try to do an export and see if the result is good enough for your needs. 🙂

A redditor told me I could make the 4k timeline and use an adjustment layer to scale to 200% . Thoughts?

By @cooperecc

Remix with Firefly Community Gallery

Thousands of free creations to fall in love with and remix in Firefly.

Explore now

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.