P: Export As pixel art using nearest neighbor causing blurry image

[Wabber_HM]

I just updated to v22.5 of Photoshop and I've noticed the new "Export As" dialog is now the default (it says v5.5.5) and I've noticed quite a few regressions in the user experience compared to the previous version.

Screenshot20210817105103-e327a6dd-1649-4f08-9ddd-941315d28db6-99611798.png

First, the font is far too thin. I am on Windows 10, my monitor is 2560x1440 and I'm not using any scaling, so this does not look great for the most part.

Keyboard shortcuts have stopped working. Before, pressing Enter upon first opening the window would do the same thing as clicking the Export button below.

Pressing Ctrl+ to zoom in and out used to work as well. Now, zooming is only possible with the small plus and minus buttons.

I was wrong about this one, but it would still be nice to be able to zoom in with keys if the image area is in focus.

When selecting multiple images, the previews appear too sharp and there's visible sharpening noise around finer details that weren't there before.

It also looks like exporting SVG isn't possible anymore. This will significantly reduce the efficiency of exporting assets from PSD files compared to before. There seems to be an option to copy as SVG from the layer itself (which helps to get it back in Illustrator, which is great), but I have to just paste this into a text file and save it manually to hand it off to a developer, why not just add it back to Export As to save me the step?

"Nearest Neighbor" scaling is incorrect and its results instead match the "Bicubic" option, which makes it completely unsuitable for pixel-precise work.

I understand for now I can revert to the legacy "Export As" dialog in the Preferences, but I would like to see these issues addressed before the legacy option is removed. As it is right now, it's quite a step down from before, unfortunately.

[Brett N]

Thank you for reporting these items. We changed the underlying codebase for Export As to make it more compatible for newer machines and make performance enhancements. This has resulted in some changes to how the tool behaves.

First, the smaller text size is an indirect result of this codebase change. The new code uses a different library for UI elements, called Spectrum, which includes things like different weights for the fonts. This is not something we can change directly for just Export As and should be brought up with the Spectrum team. For more information on this, see: https://spectrum.adobe.com/

The zoom keyboard shortcuts are not a function Export As has supported. I'll add this as a feature request.

The new Export As uses newer resize methods which result in sharper previews. Normally, sharper would be preferable to blurry, but in some images this may not be the case. If you could provide some examples or screen shots, that could help us make improvements. 

The old Export As had a dependency on older technology within Photoshop that was used to provide SVG support. We are working toward removing this older technology from Photoshop and that meant removing it from Export As first. We should have documentation, including workarounds, but it doesn't look like it has been published yet. I'm working with the relevant team to see if we can get this corrected. 

Nearest Neighbor is definitely exporting as Bicubic. I will have the team work on correcting this. 

[Wabber_HM]

@brett_n 

Hi. Thanks for the very concise response. The performance enhancements definitely are noticeable and it's processing images much faster than before. And it probably resolves those strange clipping issues from before as well.

The new UI library really is comprehensive and detailed. The font examples there render much better than they're coming out in the Export As dialog. I thought it would have been due to a lighter font weight being used, but it might be something else since it can look better.

The preview quality is actually fine. Whatever sharpening on multi-select that was noticeable is very subtle and is a big step up over the previous version's rendering. If anything, this new resize interpolation should be used when zoomed out on single selection since the quality on those looks much worse.

And for SVG support, does this mean the feature is eventually coming back? Because if the method the layer option uses is from older tech that is being removed, I wouldn't want to lose that feature as well.

Thanks for your response.

[Brett N]

Yes, we did fix the clipping issue.

For SVG, there are currently two paths (pun not intended): 

1. Use Generator. Just add ".svg" to the end of the name of a shape or other vector layer with Image Assets turned on. I'm not sure why we don't mention SVG in our documentation here: https://helpx.adobe.com/il_en/photoshop/using/generate-assets-layers.html, but I just verified it still works. 

2. Use Illustrator. This is more along the lines of what we are suggesting now but haven't released our documentation on it yet. This 3rd-party link covers the essential steps though: https://chasingheartbeats.com/photoshop-how-to-save-as-svg-file/

[Jonah5CD0]

I've been exporting pixel art for months using nearest neighbor with no issue. I used to be able to scale the pixel art up to 1000% in the export menu, resample using nearest neighbor, and have a clear scaled up image. Now when I use the same process my images are coming out blurred as though I were resampling using the bicubic setting. I've tried reseting my preferences with no success. I am using CC 2021 on windows 10 pro. Below is a screenshot of the export menu, an image of how the art used to come out (clear) and an image of house the art is now coming out (blurred).  Any help is much appreciated! 

[J453]

Thanks for reporting. Engineering is investigating this issue.

Workaround: Go to Preferences > Export... and check "Use Legacy Export As"

[jazminr70957965]

@J453 Are there any updates or work arounds on the scaling issue for Nearest Neighbor? Thanks!

[BillyKatz]

I would like to +1 this issue with exporting not respecting my Nearest Neighbor setting.  I basically only use Photoshop for Pixelart and the lack of exporting 1x, 2x and 3x images is slowing down my work process.  This was happening on v 22.4, im updating to 22.5.1 to see if that fixes it

[BillyKatz]

@J453 thanks for investigating.  The issue still occurs in Photoshop v 22.5.1

[fz88888888]

Hello

I also suffer from the update messing with my pixelart workflow and await a patch resolving this issue. I hope we'll get some update soon.

[S10oooo]

Same problem here, is there any update?

[hannahb18953814]

Hi Jeffrey, this workaround doesn't seem to be available. can you give any advice?

Photoshop Version 23.0

[Mohit Goyal]

Hi all,  

We're happy to announce the release of Photoshop 23.0.1. This update includes the fix for this issue. To see the list of all fixed issues, click here

To update Photoshop to 23.0.1, click "Update" in the Creative Cloud desktop app next to Photoshop. More detailed instructions for updating  

Let us know if the update resolves the problem for those affected and share your feedback with us.  

Thanks,

Mohit

[PECourtejoie]

@Brett N 

On that page, the following link: https://blog.adobe.com/samartha/2013/09/a-closer-look-at-the-photoshop-generator-syntax with the syntax is not online anymore. I do not understand why it was not an HelpX page.

[BrettN]

I know some recent changes happened with the Adobe Blogs site which involved removal of some content. I'm not familiar with what was at the link you point out, so I couldn't say what we currently don't have access to. Did it include information which was not in the Helpx article that linked to it? If so, we should get that in there. But my understanding is the blog would have given essentially the same info but in a more personable and example driven manner rather than a broad and general approach. I'll check to see if there is an archive of the info and see what we can do to get anything which it may have had as extra put into the help doc (probably a good idea to get rid of the dead link while where at it).