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Paulcoy
Paulcoy
New Participant
April 24, 2021
Question

Resize without Distortion

  • April 24, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 2674 views

Hi. I am new here, and by no means an expert on PS. I have a jpg image that was sent to me by phone, and I now have on my Windows 10 computer. I am running PS vs 22.3.1. This image needs reducing in size by approx 20%. It includes photos and text on it, I have tried converting to a Smart Object, but still it looks pixelated, compared to the original. Any advice on how to do this properly would be much appreciated Many Thanks Paul

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4 replies

gener7
gener7
Adobe Expert
April 24, 2021

Go into Full Screen Mode, load the original image, then use the Zoom Tool to reduce magnification by 20%. Take a screenshot and see of that screenshot is an improvement.

    Paulcoy
    PaulcoyAuthor
    New Participant
    April 24, 2021

    Sounds promising. Unfortunately won't be able to try till tomorrow. Thanks gener

    gener7
    gener7
    Adobe Expert
    April 24, 2021

    I use that method to make quick wallpapers. Sometimes it works really well  So worth a try.

    JJMack
    JJMack
    Adobe Expert
    April 24, 2021

    When you resize your image are you maintaining the image's Aspect Ratio,  Anytime you resample an image  the resulting image quality will degrade somewhat.  And if you do not do a constrained resize your image will be distorted as well being lower in image quality. Raster text does not interpolate well As well as text being sized smaller harder to see its quality is lower details has been discarded.

    JJMack
      Paulcoy
      PaulcoyAuthor
      New Participant
      April 24, 2021

      Thanks JJ Yes the aspect ratio has to be maintained. I'v watched a few tutorials and got the impression that Smart Object was the magic tool I needed. I guess not in my case.

       

      JJMack
      JJMack
      Adobe Expert
      April 25, 2021

      The Smart object has your original image images quality. Only Vector Smart object resize via vector graphics, Smart Object like raster images are resized via interpolation,  The  good thing about Smart object layers the resize is from the original object always. You can resize a smart object layer over and over again till  you get it right and not accumulate image quality loss because it always a transform from the original object not from the last transform image. Its a single resize from the original image.  When an images is interpolated the resulting will have a lower image quality. If you reduce the number of pixels the image has some image details you have will be lost there room for all the details you had for the original image.  If you increase the number of pixels the interpolation method has to create detail for the larger images it does not have. There are no paths for item in the image that can scaled via math. A raster image is just a matrix of colored pixels.  There is no car, person, text, just colored square pixels.

      JJMack
        c.pfaffenbichler
        c.pfaffenbichler
        Adobe Expert
        April 24, 2021

        And on terminology: 

        »Distortion« would usually be used to describe a change of relative spatial features, not an issue like pixelation. 

        c.pfaffenbichler
        c.pfaffenbichler
        Adobe Expert
        April 24, 2021

        Could you please post a screenshot taken at View > 100% with the pertinent Panels (Toolbar, Layers, Options Bar, …) visible of the original and the downsampled version? 

        Paulcoy
        PaulcoyAuthor
        New Participant
        April 24, 2021

        Unfortunately I can't post the image for copyright reasons. But  the original Jpeg is  739 x 1600,  Resolution 72 And the downsampled image when zoomed in only a little is fairly pixelated. whereas the original is good. As I said it's a jpeg and unfortuantely. not a tif for example I think my question is more that I thought a smart object would keep most of the original quality. Just to confirm I am reducing not scaling up Thanks for your reply

        davescm
        davescm
        Adobe Expert
        April 24, 2021

        A smart object still displays at the number of pixels in the document that contains that smart object. So if you reduce the pixel size of that "master" document then the number of pixels available to display the SO content is also reduced.

        The advantage of the smart object is that if you scale the master document down then back up again, the new display is calculated directly from the SO content so nothing is permanently lost when you scale down and then back up.

         

        Dave

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