Photoshop Elements 2022 has a pixelated GUI running on windows 11.

Report · Dec 19, 2021

I have a trial instance of photoshop elements 2022 running on my modern system with a 4K monitor. I'm actually trialling the software on behalf of a family member who is considering purchasing the software for themself.

My only issue I have with photoshop elements is that for some reason, the user interface seems very dated, graphically. I'm not referring to the graphical user interface in itself per se, but instead I'm commenting on the fact that text in the program, as well as icons and photos appear to all be very pixelated. It seems like the organizer and the editor are running or rendering in a very low resolution.

Is this normal? The first and most glaring issue I had with this product was that many windows would not appear to scale - for example if I tried to open the print menu from within the organizer, the subsequent window would be way too large, and I could not even click on the print button because it was off-screen. I was able to fix this by going into the properties of the program itself, and override the DPI settings asking it to use the DPI settings of the system instead of the program. However the user interface still appears quite pixelated, and due to this, cumbersome.

Is this a normal thing that others experience as well, or is this a one off incident?

I've attached a photo to illustrate what I mean.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Report · Dec 20, 2021

Just curious:

I would expect a 4K image screenshot to be 3840 x 2160 pixels, but your png screenshot is only 3456 x 2160.

That's a significant horizontal resampling.

Report · Dec 20, 2021

Hi there Michael,

Actually I appreciate that you brought that up; because it shows you've actually paid attention. To be more specific, and I should have been off the get-go, I have a Dell XPS 13 with a 3.5K OLED Display, it is not full 4K... But in my post for all intents and purposes I stated 4K to simply convey that it is a high resolution display.

And as for the original post, I've actually done more troubleshooting, including downloading the Photoshop elements 2022 program from Adobe's website instead of the Microsoft store - and have come up with this:

- Running the Elements 2022 photo editor program yields perfect native functionality with my resolution. All text and icons are 1:1 with my display resolution, and everything is crisp.

-Running the Photoshop elements 2022 organizer nets a downscaled resolution in every program element down to the text. I can see visible pixelation on everything - it's almost as if the program is running in 1200x768 or some other low resolution and then being upscaled to my displays resolution. This is even present in the splash pre-load screen that appears momentarily as the program initializes.

Unfortunately I doubt anything you can do will help me, but on the other hand Adobe support cannot be reached unless you purchase their software, which, why would I purchase software that I know for a fact does not work.

Anyways, I appreciate any input you may have, and of course, thanks for taking the time to investigate.