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Ead5F99
Known Participant
March 22, 2021
Question

Same Photo Clear in Illustrator, Blurry in Photoshop

  • March 22, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 714 views

Hi there,

 

Apologies for what I am sure will turn out to be a very simple question.

 

I am working on something in Illustrator. The size is 336 x 280 px.I placed a 1500 x 1000 photo (jpeg) in and resized it, and it looks fine and crisp.

 

When I tried doing the exact same in Photoshop using the same size document, the image was really blurry. Same for if I copied it straight over from Illustrator.

I was zoomed in on both files at 200%. My understanding is that unless something is a vector, resizing a big image to be small will cause quality loss - so why has it only caused quality loss in photoshop and not in illustrator?

 

Thanks!

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1 reply

c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
c.pfaffenbichlerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 22, 2021

»I was zoomed in on both files at 200%.«

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

 

»why has it only caused quality loss in photoshop and not in illustrator?«

Photoshop is a pixel oriented program – so 336px x 280px actually means 336px x 280px. 

Illustrator is a vector oriented application – so a placed pixel image can have whatever resolution within the file.

But look at what you get when you export the image in a pixel format (png, jpg, …) at the same size of 336px x 280px. 

    E
    Ead5F99Author
    Known Participant
    March 23, 2021

    Oh when I exported both of them as PNGs the quality of each was the same!!! That is amazing, thank you so much, I never would have checked that! So does it not really matter what program I am using, cos as long as I save it as a png or jpg etc the quality will be the same anyway?

     

      c.pfaffenbichler
      Community Expert
      c.pfaffenbichlerCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 23, 2021

      If you work for specific pixel dimensions and output as png, gif or jpg then both applications will provide similar output. (Resampling algorithms for example may make some difference.) 

      If you output as a vector format (svg, pdf, …) then the differences may be more relevant. 

       

      But to make sure to avoid unnecessary image degradation when transforming images repeatedly in Photoshop try to work with Smart Objects when possible. 

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