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ArtAngelus
ArtAngelus
Participant
September 21, 2021
Question

Problems with the resolution with new 4K screen laptop

  • September 21, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 437 views

(c/p from Dell forum, hoping that one lovely soul will help me here if not there)

 

Hello there,

just bought a new Dell XPS 17 9700 for my business - mostly doing graphic stuff in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

 

After a day, when I exported the image from Illustrator I realized that actually there is a problem with the resolution, mostly with the images. All text and other web stuff on the browser look good.

 

However, whenever I'm previewing images (even if they are random images from the Dribbble/Behance) they tend to look 10-15% blurred, especially in comparison to the preview I have in my Adobe Illustrator (latest 2021 version).

 

I didn't have that problem on my previous Acer laptop, and I do understand this one has a kind of problem because of the 4K resolution, but I'm not sure what to do. Tried everything for the last few hours, but nothing works.

 

So, the problems are:

- not possible to export images from Illustrator/Photoshop in normal quality - really tried everything here, all the settings, all compabilities etc.

- other images, even the ones that to other people/screens look good/sharp, in my case they look slightly blurred

 

I tried changing various resolutions and scaling in my Display settings, but nothing works. Currently, it's set up as both 'recommended' options which are  3840x2400 and 250%

 

Please, I would really appreciate it if any of you can help somehow regarding this frustrating problem. It wouldn't bother me as much, but it's related to my work so I can't have that kind of issue at all.

 

Thank you upfront, appreciate your time and help!

Ivan

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 21, 2021

The web browser will scale the image to the OS setting, and 250% is an odd and awkward scaling. Some blurring is inevitable when one image pixel turns into 6.25 screen pixels. Try 200% instead, which allows a clean 2:1 scaling.

 

Then set Photoshop to View > 200% to preview the result.

 

It's important to realize the difference between raster and vector here! This is only a problem with pixel-based raster images. A vector application like Illustrator is unaffected by this. Vector data are infinitely scalable, and will always be rendered at full screen resolution at any scaling.

ArtAngelus
ArtAngelusAuthor
Participant
September 21, 2021

Not working for me, already tried that.

 

What I'm trying to say, is that it's not only a problem in Illustrator/PS but also outside of it as well.

 

But trying to figure out if I can at least solve it in AI/PS.

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 21, 2021

Yes, it's exactly outside Photoshop/Illustrator that you will see the effect of this. That's my point.

 

And the cause is scaling. You need to consider carefully what an image is: pixels. That's all it is. That sounds obvious, but it has some deep implications for 4K screens.

 

Two flavors of pixels come into play here - the image pixels, and the screen pixels. The important thing here is the relationship between these two. Ideally, they should translate 1:1, so that one image pixel = one screen pixel. That's when you see the image exactly as it is, crisp and sharp. And that's what happens on a traditional HD screen.

 

That doesn't work on a 4K screen, because the screen pixels are packed much tighter and each screen pixel that much smaller. So the image gets very small on screen.

 

That would be fine if everybody, everywhere had 4K screens. Then websites would just be made with higher resolution images, and everybody would be happy. But they don't. The industry standard to get around this problem is to let web browsers and other consumer-oriented image viewers scale up when they detect a high resolution display. This is not a problem with text and vector elements, but it can be a problem with pixel images.

 

However, despite the potential problems, doing it this way has one all-overriding advantage: It lets the same images be viewed at a comfortable size on any screen, whatever the screen technology. You can open the same website on a standard screen and a 4K screen. Otherwise, you'd need separate versions of the same site, or separate versions of all images.

 

What I'm getting at is that when you use a web browser on a 4K screen, everything is scaled up. When you use a standard screen, it's not scaled up. That's the difference. Scaling always works best at even ratios. 200% is relatively unproblematic, because it packs 4 screen pixels into one, representing each image pixel. In effect, it turns your 4K display into a standard one. But it's still sharp. At 250%, however, each image pixel has to be spread out over an odd number of "partial" screen pixels, using anti-aliasing to bleed into neighboring pixels.

 

Try to draw up a checkerboard pattern to help you visualize what happens.

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