Is there a way to stop Photoshop from offloading details when I zoom too far?

[Oat_]

So when I zoom out to see the whole image, I notice that some details get offloaded. I was wondering if there was a setting I could turn on/off to let me see every detail in the image even when zoomed out. When I save the image as a jpg, all the details show up. Its a bit annoying because half the time I'm working, I don't see what the image would look like in its final state.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@Oat_ what you are experiencing is a limitation of your monitor resolution and pixel data information. You'd have to have a larger 4K+ monitor with a higher resolution to view such miniscule details while fit to page.

[davescm]

Hi

Photoshop works in a pyramid of image caches when zoomed out and the visual impact of this depends on the image itself, in terms of content, layers and blend modes.

When zoomed out the pixels in each layer are combined together and then blended between the layers. In the simplest example at 50% zoom 4 pixels on each layer become 1 effective pixel and these are then blended between layers. This means the effect of fine noise in images is lost and can make quite a dramatic change on the blended image. Exactly how many levels are used depends on the settings in Preferences > Performance Cache levels. However it is not possible to set cache to 0 and work without caching when zoomed out.

There is also a second factor. which depends on your settings in Preferences >Technology Previews > Precise Previews for 16-bit documents. If this is not checked then at zoom levels lower than 66.7%, Photoshop switches to 8 bit for previewing even if the document is 16 bit. If checked it remains in 16 bit.

This is why the recommendation is always to check blending at 100% zoom which does match the final flattened image..

Dave

[D Fosse]

Dave's post is the correct and full explanation.

The condensed version is that what you see is your monitor resolution 😉