When I paste an image in photoshop, its quality goes so bad!

[naruuu]

Whenever I paste an image or drag and drop it to my photoshop document, the image resolution goes so bad.

What should I do to keep the quality of an image that I want to edit/draw on in photoshop?

[Semaphoric]

Saying "The resolution goes bad" doesn't tell us anything. Could you post  some before and after pics? And are you viewing them at 100% in Photoshop?

[Brett36808009nrcs]

Him telling us the resolution goes bad gives us a general idea of his problem. One could probably imagine that the quality of his image depreciates once he rescales and if a person knows that they can offer solutions that cater to that issue.

[Theresa J]

What is the pixel dimensions of the Photoshop document? What is the pixel dimension of the image you are pasting into it? Which is going bad, the image in the original Photoshop document, or the one you are placing into it? Is this a problem with a specific document, or does it happen with everything?

[Trevor.Dennis]

This will not apply if you really are pasting into the target image, but if you are pasting, and these Preference settings are checked (which I think is the default), then it could be that the pixel size of the source image is way too small. 

If you are sourcing your images from Google, are you making use of the Size filter?  You can go right up to 9000 pixels on the long side with 'Larger than...'  It is important that you chose appropriate sizes when introducing new image elements.

There is actually a useful side benefit of searching for large pixel sizes.  It gets you past all the watermarked stock images that fill the first several pages, and it is obviously better to work with larger images from the point of view of making selections etc.

[emma98A4]

This happens to me as well! I notice it most when I take screen shots. If I paste the screen shot into a more simple program like Paint or Powerpoint, the "quality" is preserved. But when I paste into a new Photoshop file it tends to loose quality, by which I mean that text is too blurry to read. 

The below Huntington lake map was pasted into Paint. You can easily read all the road names. (I'm not sure if this will transfer well to inserting into a post, but hopefully you can tell the difference). This image is 396KB, 1904x1062pixels, 96dpi.

This Dinkey Creek Road map is 2 screenshots (the road runs over two maps) pasted into a blank document in Photoshop so I could line them up and create a single continuous map of the whole road. The "quality" is so low I can't read any of the road names and can barely distinguish the line pattern types to see what kind of road it is. This image is 413KB, 1252x770pixels, 72dpi.

Here is a close up section of the same Dinkey Creek Rd map. This file is 195KB, 837x588pixels, 72dpi.

[Arlen26063670q86t]

I have the same problem.  I'll attach screenshots.  An image draged into Word looks fine.  If I copy it in Word, create a new file in Photoshop, and paste it in, it looses resolution.  Dramatically.  If I resize the Photoshop image to 4X the dpi and paste again it makes no difference.  Frustrating.

[D Fosse]

Those screenshots say absolutely nothing without any kind of context. Where are they from, what application, how did you make them? What do you mean, exactly, when you say "resolution"? What's wrong here?

The only thing I can make out of this is that the last one appears to have been massively scaled up/resampled.

[Jason laChance]

Rather than copy pasting the image try placing it as an embedded image then photoshop will automatically convert it to a smart object. File then Place Embedded.

[D Fosse]

But that's exactly when you may get unwanted scaling, which is apparently what the problem is here.

To avoid scaling, copy - paste. That aligns the source pixel grid 1:1 to the target pixel grid.

[Fameandmurphy]

It is amazing how some respondents create more problems by feigning not to understand the question just because the asker wasn't using Photoshop and Graphic Design jargon. This is like one of the problems of Photoshop and many other Adobe products. Why is it so difficult to make Photoshop retain the quality of the image, regardless of how it was pasted? Then they go off the topic and ask questions in an entirely different direction. Then @Jason laChance stepped in with a simple answer and saved us, letting us know that the question was in plain English that even a second-language user would understand.

Well, here's a solution:
When you download the image, say, from Google, right-click on it and choose to open it with Photoshop. The resolution will remain the same. You can now copy and paste it into the original document where you want it to be. The resolution will remain the same.

Jason, I tried the 'embedded' placing but it didn't work for me. In the same vein, the solution that I described above may not work in all cases even though it worked in mine.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Why is it so difficult to make Photoshop retain the quality of the image, regardless of how it was pasted? 

By @Fameandmurphy

Target image = 5000 x 5000 pixels.

Source object = 500 x500 pixel

But it's Adobe's fault that image quality is lost when streatching the smaller image element to the much heigher res image?  That difference in resoltion is the ONLY reason image quality is compromised, regardless of how it was added to the target image.  

[minipanda]

They think they'd look cool with those replies haha. I understand it as well from the title itself I don't understand why people need to overcomplicate things

[c.pfaffenbichler]

What you call »overcomplicate« appears to be the »bare minimum of pertinent information«, like the pixel dimensions of the source and the target.

Edit: Though that information would not need to be given as numbers, meaningful screenshots could be sufficient.

[Lumigraphics]

Photoshop is professional software and intended for users with at least some knowledge of graphics and imaging.

Dumbing down our replies doesn't help anyone.

[Trevor.Dennis]

I'm a bit concerned with your described workflow.  Are you saying that you paste an image into Word, and then copy the image from Word and paste in Photoshop?  Only that will almost certainly lead to a poor quality image in Photoshop.  Pasting images into MS apps like Word and Outlook tends to create huge images that need to be downsized.  If you have ever received a Word or Outlook document with embedded images, and tried to use those images in Photoshop you'll know that they are of limited use. 

[max_2996]

Instead of copying images you need to file } export as a PNG which will save the image to your computer, and then instead of pasting you will file } place embedded which should give you a 100% clear image

[D Fosse]

@max_2996 

Copy/paste is the proper and safe way to do it if you want to avoid scaling and quality degradation.

Placing a smart object is exactly when you can get unwanted scaling, which was the problem here.