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A
Austin Blanks
Participant
March 11, 2011
Answered

Imported images distorted/pixelated

  • March 11, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 48811 views

Hi,

I am importing images (PSD and JPG) that are crystal clear in photoshop, but when I import them to InDesign, they appear and print pixelated and don't have the same clarity as in photoshop.  Can anyone give me advice?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Steve Werner

    Make sure you've turned on View > Display Performance > High Quality Display.

    Open in the Info panel. Select each image and check its Effective (scaled) Resolution. Images which are enlarged will have a lower resolution.

    4 replies

    joechump
    joechump
    Inspiring
    February 7, 2017

    Also experiencing the same issue as above - images sometimes randomly distort and get 'squished'. Export is fine though. Seemed to fix when right clicking the image and selecting High Quality Display.

    Also you might find that if you go to view>display performance you might have 'Allow Object-Level Display Settings' ticked. This would

    presumably override the global display settings making some images appear more pixelated than Guybrush Threepwood's todger.

    For good measure I selected Clear Object-Level Display settings.

    These are useful settings if you are working on a large document or a particularly huge image is slowing you down because you would be able to set that single image to low quality whilst keeping the rest high quality. However, there seems to be a bit of a bug (?) in CC where these settings are automatically switching and causing confusion. And really, I've seen low res images in my time but these look like 8-bit toilet scrapings.

    Steve Werner
    Community Expert
    Steve WernerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 7, 2017

    "images sometimes randomly distort and get 'squished'."

    There is a bug in the current version of the GPU (only available on Macs with Retina Display and meet the requirements). Choose View > Preview on CPU when this happens. It's a known issue.

      C
      ChrisLeicester
      Known Participant
      August 12, 2021

      Yes, same problem here. I want to import an image - that was pixellated, but the advice above worked. However, I then wanted to rotate the frame slightly to have lots of overlapping frames with images at various rotations to simulate a stack of magazines. As soon as it's rotated, it goes pixellated again.

       

      Yet another Adobe product that isn't usable 😞 I ended up using Powerpoint in the end, which does the trick just fine.

      M
      morganp56485506
      Participant
      December 6, 2016

      I can't help with original question bc I'm having this display problem. I import and it is fine. Then I import another image and the image display will suddenly change. See image attached. What is the problem. I'm using the latest indesign through adobe cloud. Any ideas or suggestions as to why this would be happening? Thanks-Heather

      L
      lesliem88016789
      Participant
      January 12, 2017

      I am having the same problem. I import an image and it looks fine and when I go back to it at some point, it appears distorted pretty much the same as your examples. I too am using the new InDesign CC. Anyone else?

      N
      NikkiTurner
      Participant
      July 13, 2015

      right click with your mouse & then check 'high quality display'

      Steve Werner
      Community Expert
      Steve WernerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      March 11, 2011

      Make sure you've turned on View > Display Performance > High Quality Display.

      Open in the Info panel. Select each image and check its Effective (scaled) Resolution. Images which are enlarged will have a lower resolution.

        A
        Austin BlanksAuthor
        Participant
        March 11, 2011

        display is at highest quality, the effective ppi says 432, actual 72.  I'm shrinking these photos, which were originally RAW but converted.  The image resolution in Photoshop says 240 pixels/in.  I am changing to CMKY from RGB

          Joel Cherney
          Community Expert
          Joel CherneyCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          March 11, 2011

          I've found that relying on scaling in InDesign can occasionally be wonky when you apply a great deal of scaling (as you have) to a raster image. Do the scaling in Photoshop to get it to the size/resolution you need, and place that next to the image you've scaled in ID to see if it's any better.

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