Image pixelates when resized to smaller

[Yulia31576255974u]

Hi everyone, I'm a newbie to Photoshop and there's one thing I can't find answer online for. Hope someone here can help me explain what I'm doing wrong. 

When I create a new file and drag a really high-quality photo in there- the quality immediately drops when I resize to make it smaller (even while smart object is on). 

Example: I made a canvas 1200x720. I drag a photo in( the photo's original resolution is 3548x5376) and the photo is all pixelated when you zoom in. I always thought that it's tough to make a small photo big, but not the other way around. Why does that happen and how do I retain the high resolution of the photo on a smaller canvas? I did the same experiment in Figma, creating a canvas of 1200x720 and the photo stayed in perfect quality even after I resized it, so am I doing smth wrong in Photoshop?

Attached 2 examples- 1 original photo with 50% zoom and 2 what the same photo looks like when I dragged it in another file.

[Earth Oliver · Accepted solution]

>how do I retain the high resolution of the photo on a smaller canvas?

You don't. When you scale an image down, you're literally removing pixels/detail from the image.

[Yulia31576255974u]

Thanks for answering! I realised now this was my fault- expecting the image to stay crisp while making it 4 times smaller. 
Just shows what a newbie I am 😅

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post meaningful screenshots taken at View > 100%? Edit: With the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible, please. 

What is Figma? 

Photoshop is a pixel-oriented image editing program (with some vector capabilities), so comparing it to something else (like a page layout program or a vector oriented program) would seem to be nonsensical. 

[Sef McCullough]

Hi @Yulia31576255974u ,

So when you drag that high quality photo into your smaller canvas size file and scale it down, Photoshop does have to "downsample" the image to the smaller size. As another poster stated, essentially removing pixels.

So when you zoom in, there's just not enough pixel information left to zoom in very far.

Now Figma is probably maintaining the original image's full size aka *all* the pixels, and allowing you to zoom in further.

That's the backstory, but it would be easier to solve your problem if you tell us what you're actually trying to achieve in the end.

Couple things:

You could simply maintain the original image size and crop it to the *ratio* of 1200x720 (1.6:1)

or

You could convert the larger image to a smart object first, then drag it in. This will maintain the full resolution contents of the image, but still will pixelate if you zoom in at the smaller canvas size.

Let us know if that helps?

Sef

[Yulia31576255974u]

Hi Sef,

Thank you for a detailed answer, this is indeed super helpful!

Yes, Figma just played a trick on me because when I made a small frame and zoomed in, it still showed the image in high resolution..but later I exported it - and compared it with the Photoshop one and they were identical. I'll just increase the size to 2400x1440.

I'm still learning and really appreciate answers in this community!

[rob day]

Hi @Yulia31576255974u , Also, when you are cutting and pasting or moving between documents consider their output dimensions, which is different than their pixel dimensions.

You can change the output dimensions and resolution of an image without changing its pixel dimensions by unchecking Resample in Image Size.

Here my source document is 11.889" in Height, and the destination document is only 5.45" in height, but the source resolution is 72ppi and the destination resolution is 200ppi, so when I cut and paste their output dimensions are not relative:

If I uncheck Resample for the source, and set Resolution to 200ppi, its output dimension changes from 11.889" to 4.28" in height, but its pixel dimensions do not change. Now the source and destination documents have the same output resolution and their output heights are relative—the source is 4.28" and the destination is 5.45".

With the matching resolutions, the pasted source dimensions makes sense relative to the output height of the destination: