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3

when i make my image smaller it becomes blurry

Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

Hi when i make my image smaller it becomes blurry. I am sclaing my image down to 8.5 by 11.3 as you can see it gets blurry after i scale it down.butterfly wing.jpgbutterfly wing.jpg

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

An image is just pixels. How many pixels are you starting with, and how many do you end up with?

 

In addition to fewer pixels, the resampling itself softens and blurs. There is no way to avoid that. That's why it's common practice to sharpen the result up a little bit.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

An image is just pixels. How many pixels are you starting with, and how many do you end up with?

 

In addition to fewer pixels, the resampling itself softens and blurs. There is no way to avoid that. That's why it's common practice to sharpen the result up a little bit.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

i start with 72 and end with 72 and i tried sharpining the image but it made no difference

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023
quote

i start with 72 and end with 72 and i tried sharpining the image but it made no difference

By @Kiran32518984c9x2

 

Do you mean 72 ppi? That’s only a measure of pixel density, not dimensions. The large image you uploaded is 3042 x 4032 pixels, and the small one is 612 x 816 pixels. So the number of pixels was reduced by 96%, only about 4% of the original detail remains.

 

That reduction in pixels is necessary to create a small image for a website or email, so there was nothing wrong with reducing it that much. But you want to study best practices for sharpening images for the web or video. This is a common procedure, so there should be tutorials and information about it all over the Internet.

 

How did you sharpen it? For example, I wouldn’t use Unsharp Mask, I would use the newer Smart Sharpen command that helps protect against unsightly artifacts.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

i used unsharp mask and it didnt change the appearance so i will try smart sharpen and get  back with you

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

When viewed at 100%, it's the larger version that's blurry. The smaller version is sharp, I'd say oversharpened.

To assess sharpness and noise (and other detail) in an image, always view it at 100%, where one image pixel is represented by one screen pixel. This is the only view that gives you a true impression of the image.

Any  other view will be inaccurate and misleading because the image has been scaled.

 

image.png

 

image.png

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

As said in all of these suggestions you need to experiment your self to fing optium for your image and applications.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

Are both versions JPEGs? JPEGs add compression. If you're compressing an already compressed image, then you could be introducing artifacts. You might try scaling down the original image and saving it as a PNG instead.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

Hi yes i start with 72 and i end with 72

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

Not ppi, that's irrelevant. How many pixels wide by how many pixels high?

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

oh okay i start with 3024 x 4032 then end with 612 x 816

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

okay i will try that, how do i scale down the image?

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

You can scale the entire image by going to Image > Image Size... and adjusting the size with Resample selected.

 

Then when you save (File > Save a Copy... if you want to keep the original image) and set the Save as type to PNG.

 

You can also export a PNG. You could go to File > Export > Export As... and set the Format to PNG and adjust the size within the Export As dialog or go to File > Export > Save for Web (Legacy)... and set it to PNG-24 and adjust the Image Size in the Save for Web dialog.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

In our experience on this forum, and my own with camera club members entering digital images into club competitions, nothing seems to confuse people more than image size and PPI (Pixels Per Inch).  

 

You reduced your image from 3024 pixels wide to 612 pixels wide.  We don't know what Resample algorithm you used, (we'll come back to that later).

image.png

If we uncheck Resample, and change the Resolution to 300, it still has the same pixel size of 3024 X 816 and is still 34.9Mb, but the linear size has changed so if you were to print the image as it is now, it would produce a smaller print.

image.png

 

When you resample to change the pixel resolution you have a number of options. The default is Automatic  where Photoshop decides.  I suspect that is what yours was set to, and that Photoshop used Bicubic Sharper

image.png

 

I used Preserve Details 2.0 in the example below, and it gives a much better result.

image.png

 

This compares Preserve Details 2.0 on the left, and Bicubic Sharper on the right zoomed in to 400%

image.png

 

What do you think?

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

i will try that, do you put in 300 resoultion and the preserve 2.0?

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

No.  Set Width to Pixels, and the value 612

Resample must be checked (turned on) and set to Preserve Details 2.0

image.png

You might be inteerested in trying other options, but I think this one will give the best results.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

here is what mines look like after your instrustions it did get better but still blurry. Yours look less blurry than mine but im not sure why?

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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

How do you look at the pictures? You need to look at them in Photoshop and at 100% (one pixel on the screen is one pixel in the image). For anything else, the image gets recalculated. And you do not have influence on the method used.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
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Community Expert ,
Sep 25, 2023 Sep 25, 2023

Good point.  It might be to do with the OP's hardware and screen etc. and the way it is displayed.  I have copied Kiran's most recent screen shot to Photoshop, and while it looks OK at 100% zoom, I am thinking that it doesn't look quite as good when zoomed well in on my screen.  I can't compare without doing it all again, because I lost that document after signing out for another thread.

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New Here ,
Apr 20, 2025 Apr 20, 2025

This Problem also happened to me, please resolve it.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 21, 2025 Apr 21, 2025
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This Problem also happened to me, please resolve it.


By @Sakharam_Ajagekar7726


There are no magic answers.

 

There are the original pixel dimensions and the target pixel dimensions.

 

How you get there is choosing a resampling/interpolation method (algorithm). Some image content with fine repeating patterns detail may benefit from a pre-blur before resampling down to lessen aliasing and a suitable interpolation method. Usually careful sharpening of some description after the resize will help to improve the appearance. This is very much image content dependent and experimentation may be required for best results.

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