Pixelated image when using in a template

[mastyxx]

Hi everyone!

I can't understand my problem.

I have a new template 10800x1080 to create a carousel on instagram.

I want to put a photo on the first 1080x1080 square.

I saved my photo in 1080x476 and in 7361x3246 to compare how they are imported on my template.

First of all, they are resized smaller when I import them, even if I disable "Resize when import".

If I resize the photos to 1080px they are more pixelated than the original photo.

I can't resize any of the 2 pictures at 1080px without pixelating them and I don't understand why...

Do you have any explanation ? Is there something I'm doing wrong ?

I share my screenshots of :

- my 10800x1080 template when I import my 2 photos

- my original 1080px photo

- my original 7361px photo

- how it looks when I resize to 1080px my 1080px photo on the template

- how it looks when I resize to 1080px my 7361px photo on the template

I hope you have a solution because I really don't understand...

Thank you for helping me !

Maxime

[D Fosse]

What do you mean when you say import? Do you mean Place? Embedded or linked? There is no "import" function in Photoshop (not for this purpose anyway). Or do you just drag it in?

Either way, be aware that this creates a smart object. Smart objects obey some special rules, one of them is that they honor physical dimensions as defined by the ppi number. They do not honor pixel dimensions. In short, you may get unwanted scaling unless you keep a close check on all ppi numbers (they all need to be the same).

It can also happen under some circumstances (depending on the GPU and driver) that smart objects don't render optimally on screen until rasterized. That executes the actual resizing. Before rasterizing it's just a virtual representation

A much safer way is to resize to pixel size first, then simply copy/paste. You know you need 1080 pixels, so resize to that first.

[mastyxx]

In french it is "Importer et incorporer", I guess it's Embedded. I tried this and also drag and drop.

Both my photo and my template are in 240ppp.

If I save (from Lightroom) my photo in 1080px it is very pixelated. Is there a file format that doesn't reduce this quality from Lightroom so I can copy/paste it in Photoshop without pixelated my photo ?

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

I'm still not sure what the problem is.

Of course an image downsampled from 7361 pixels wide, down to 1080 pixels wide, will by necessity be more pixelated. That's just the number of pixels.

The question is - does one downsampling method produce better results than another downsampling method? The answer to that can be yes, depending on the type of image. In Photoshop you have a choice of several resampling algorithms. They will all be more or less suitable for different situations.

In Lightroom there is no choice. I don't know what resampling algorithm is used (most likely it's dynamically adapted to image content, like many other things in the Camera Raw processing engine).

But it's still important to remember that a downsized smart object has not yet been finally resampled. It's just a reduced size preview. There may be subtle changes when rasterizing. I would still recommend copy/paste instead of Place - especially since you already know the final size, you don't need repeated scaling.

Oh, and - I would recommend that you view at 100% when assessing the result. 100% means 1 image pixel = 1 physical screen pixel. Your screenshots are zoomed much further in to an odd ratio, which can itself introduce artifacts on screen.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Could you please post screenshots of the offending results taken at View > 100% with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible? 

[mastyxx]

[mastyxx]

[Abambo]

Check the zoom indication. If you have 100%, one pixel on screen shows one pixel in the image. At 200%, there are 4 pixels on screen for one pixel in the image, at 400% there are 16 screen pixels for one image pixel. You see that as pixelated, even if the picture is not.

That's normal:

Hair seen at 400%.

About the same seen at 100%.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

At View > 100% I notice no problem. 

Naturally you will get pixelation when you view a pixel image at almost 400%. 

[davescm]

Yes - zooming to greater than 100% you are going to see the image pixels. 100% means 1 screen pixel used to display 1 image pixel. 400% means 16 screen pixels used to display 1 image pixel - hence the image pixel structure is visible. That level of zoom is designed to examine and edit individual image pixels.

Dave

[mastyxx]

Ok so now I understand.

If want to keep that level of quality, I have to avoid rescaling my photo. So I need to create a template with the same height that my different photos in full size.

Thanks guys!

[D Fosse]

Well, if this is going on the internet, you can't have 7000 pixel + images. You have to resize to keep load times reasonable. If your image takes a minute to load, you've lost all viewers about 58 seconds ago.

[davescm]

Also a 7000 pixel wide image will be downscaled by a browser to fit on the screen. At that point you have no control over the scaling algorithm used as it will be browser dependent.
Accept that you cannot downscale and keep all image information. Then choose a scaling algorithm that makes the best job of your images for that downscale.

Dave