Blurred images when exporting artboards using 'Export As...' for retina.

[PaulOtrium]

When I export my artboards with 'Export As...' not all layers are sharp. I've checked and I'm using smart objects, which size is big enough (I checked this when opening). They are scaled down in the artboards, and also in the scaled version of my exports.

Some other layers remain sharp.

It's a repetitive action I have done for serveral months, which always went well. Also working with PS for many years, but to be honest.. I have no clue now. Is it a bug?

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi Paul,

Sorry to hear that the exported images look blurred, could you please let us know the version of Photoshop and the Operating system you're working on?

Also, does it happen with every document or some specific one's?

What format are you exporting the artboards in?

Regards,
Sahil

[PaulOtrium]

Thanks for the reply. I'm working at a MacBook Pro With MacOS Catalina installed, and running Photoshop 2019 CC 20.0.7.

The problem does not always occur. I've used a file I already made and changed some visuals (smart objects), and saved the file as a seperate file. But nothing has changed in the settings, I guess?

I'm exporting the artboards to 1,5x sRGB jpgs with a compression of 71. (This I have been playing with, all with the same result).

Regards, Paul 

[D Fosse]

Do you have a high resolution monitor?

Web browsers, photo viewers etc scale up 2x when they detect such a display, so that everything displays at the physical screen size you're used to from a traditional display. One image pixel is displayed by four screen pixels. Effectively, they turn your high resolution display into a standard low resolution one.

Photoshop doesn't scale, and displays accurately, at native screen resolution. So it gets smaller.

[PaulOtrium]

My MacBook has, my external display has not. 
You are right that sometimes the picture is displayed @2x and sometimes not. But I would expect (and with the usual exports the case) that the file remains sharp. Now the export is blurred. 

Here is the file attached. (The logo in this case is sharp, but the picture is blurry, while the source of the picture is a really big photo)

[PaulOtrium]

Noone?

[D Fosse]

I just noticed you are exporting at 1.5x. No wonder it gets blurry. You do realize that upsamples the original, and at an odd pixel ratio at that?

If you're concerned about viewing on high density displays, don't be. Just work at standard pixel sizes. That will display normally on a normal display, and if a web browser detects a high density display, it scales up to a clean 2x so that the on-screen size is the same.

It's still upscaled, but having one image pixel represented by exactly four screen pixels is as clean as it gets. Effectively, that just reduces screen resolution and turns the high density screen into a standard one. This is the industry standard workaround. All web browsers do it.

If the text is live (vector), it can be scaled infinitely and still be rendered at native screen resolution. So it still looks sharp. That's the difference between vector and pixels.

(there are ways to upload two versions for different screens. But you don't upsample the original to get the large version; you downsample the original to get the small version.)

[PaulOtrium]

Hi, thanks for your extensive reply. You're right in the 1.5x export. For the dashes this is not optimal, because this will generate a 1.5px stroke, so in the end I'm going forward with @2x. But this doesn't change the fact that my big smart objects get rendered as if they are just a rasterized JPG two times blown up.. 😞 

[davescm]

On export , smart objects are rasterised to the exported document size. They have to be - the exported file (jpeg or png) has only one image layer

Dave

[PaulOtrium]

Hey Adobe.. I think it's bad I still have the problem and noone is replying.
I'm having this issue as well when creating a new file and I'm sure I've checked everything. Please help..

Right now I used Sketch to do it, in combination with exporting assets in png, but this is not the way I would like to work.

Below you will find the exports of both applications.

Photoshop

Sketch

[D Fosse]

Those two are not from the same file. What are you trying to show?

The forum software is hopeless when there's more than one image, it's impossible to get them both to show at 100%. Can you put both into one image and post that?

[PaulOtrium]

I see.. Via this link you will find a comparison of the two images.
Look how weird Photoshop renders my 'smart' objects.. It just enlarges the pixels..

https://i.imgur.com/FXDMapj.jpg

[D Fosse]

What I see here is clear evidence that the Photoshop file has been upsampled to twice the pixel dimensions. Never do that! It never looks good and that's an absolute no-no except as an emergency measure.

When you set Export to 2x that's what you get. Start with a large file and Export to 0.5x instead (if you need 2 sizes).

You still don't seem to understand the on-screen scaling that all consumer-oriented image viewers and web browsers do when they detect a high-density display - but Photoshop doesn't do. It's very different from upsampling on document pixel level.

On-screen scaling looks a lot cleaner because it just reduces screen resolution to half. It doesn't touch image data.

[PaulOtrium]

Sorry, but this is the whole point of having the export functionallity of 2x right? I completely understand de scaling, but especially when working with smart objects this should be possible. This should be one of the benefits!

Anyway, I've moved to Sketch. Works faster, better and also gives me sharp results with exporting for 2x.
Thanks (but not) for the help.

[D Fosse]

The fact that something is possible doesn't mean you should do it.

If you need two sizes, start with a large image and downsample. Don't start with a small image and upsample.

[Ellis22337408p58n]

Hi @PaulOtrium 

I am having the same problem, and it's almost 2022! I totally understand what you are saying and agree it's very dumb that PS doesn't scale up the smart object. Sucks that everyone in this chain is so condescending. I also have not found a work-around except to size the file @2x from the getgo. 

@D Fosse if Photoshop wants to stay competitive, it should have this simple feature that Sketch and Figma all do effortlessly. Yes, I should be able to scale up my smart objects, if they open to high res. That's the point of smart objects. Many spec sheets for a ton of brands still use 1x dimensions, it should be ok if people build their file that way. For example, people commonly know a banner size as 300x250 spec, not the 2x version. It's really frustrating to have to re-build the file at 2x with different dimensions from a spec sheet. 

[Ellis22337408p58n]

@PaulOtrium I re-sized my image to be 2x dpi (144 in my case) and that worked! you probably already figured this out by now. Good luck out there

[Earth Oliver]

@D Fosse  [removed by moderator for breaking forum guidelines to be respectful]

The OP obviously knows what they're doing and the issue here is that Ps isn't behaving as expected. There have been countless bugs and workflow failures around SO's and Export As, with this issue being yet another to put on the list.

[aasdasdasdasdasdasasdsa]

Insane that this issue still not hasn't fixed. We moved to Figma instead. Works like a charm.. 🙂 

[alexanderkaplan]

Hey, so I know it's been a while, but I just found the answer to this on another thread — if your images are PSDs vs. jpgs/tiffs — it will upscale just fine! I tested it and it works! 

[davescm]

Tiffs and PSDs are similar. Both support multilayered files and upscale with equal success (or issues). JPEGS are single layered and use lossy compression with associated artifacts.

Dave

[alexanderkaplan]

The thread where I found this soluting stated that Tiffs won't work — I didn't personally test this though.