Nearest neighbor scaling (sampling) - simple and vital

[TaranVH]

After Effects allows you to use Bicubic, bilinear, and nearest neighbor ("draft") for scaling. (Also known as "sampling" or "interpolation.")

Premiere should absolutely have the option for the Motion effect to use Nearest Neighbor. (It would still be bicubic by default, as it is now.)

This is very important for sprite art, screenshots, screen recordings, etc.

Here is a forum thread on the issue from 2012, where most people unfortunately don't even understand what the problem is:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1061901

NOTE: The TRANSFORM effect currently has the option for bilinear and bicubic. It would be good to add nearest neighbor here, but that should not be the ONLY place where it is available. The Transform effect still has severe issues with buggyness, instability, and choppy movement. Again, it is important that the MOTION effect has the option for Nearest Neighbor.

[GundamVanguard]

I decided to try the methods you describe, do you think this is acceptable for low resolution content? We just want a point/nearest scale option, the options you're giving us DO NOT WORK and LOOK AWFUL. I apologize if I come off as angry, but I've seen this issue brushed off for over five years in this forum, and it's super frustrating that so many of us NEED this feature, but we're ignored. And told to use X options which are “good enough”. Can't we at least get those doing good work on the BETA team to at least do a crack at it? It can be hidden in menus for all we care, many of us are adding hours to our rather typical professional workflows for a workaround that Adobe refuses to address. Again I do apologize for my attitude, and it's not to you or any of the forum managers here, I think you're good people and doing your best. But this “good enough” answer just simply isn't good enough, and as users we're begging you to at least throw the idea at the beta team. I really do appreciate everything you all do, but this feature isn't atypical. I've been in eight different studios where this has been an issue in some capacity. I attached the image showing the workarounds you described, and I think it illustrates perfectly why they're simply NOT WORKING.

Thanks for your time as always. -Sephie

[username321123]

It is bonkers that all of the bloat that jam into their programs they can't give us nearest neighbor resizing.  Every day Adobe you come up with some new way to be dissapointing. Every day.

[Sulaco]

@Francis-Crossman Detail-Preserving Upscale will not work for "pixel" graphics, like sprites. As you can see if you look at the posted examples in this thread. Need a "Nearest Neighbour" scaling algorithm, like the one in Photoshop. We would really appreciate if someone at Adobe took a serious look at this or at least read up on what we exactly are wanting... please. Been wanting this myself for YEARS and YEARS!

[username321123]

Found a plugin that almsot works, but I can't export a MOGRT with it.  Swell.

Add this basic function in; this isn't even a feature it's a function.  Not having nearest neighbor scaling available would be like a calculator that doesn't allow you to do math in base 10.

[Blue's Editing]

Hi Francis, i work with pixel animation games and need this on my daily basis, if there is any way you could help with this problem i would be forever thankful! the ''Detail-Preserving Upscale'' is good but it doesn't help in most cases. Thank you for looking into it, Blue.

[Sulaco]

Sadly it seems like Adobe's attempt to increase communication only includes one reply, when it comes to the forums. When an Adobe employee actually reply to someone here, there are often no follow ups beyond the first reply. And I get it; they are busy. But Adobe need to try harder than this, even though to be fair, they have improved their efforts when it comes to communication. But they also need be willing to listen and actually fix/improve/change things we are reporting!

[Blue's Editing]

For me, sharpening and leveling the white levels helped, but it's not
perfect like nearest neighbor.
Unfortunately it seems we won't get this, it would be an incredible tool,
maybe some day.

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[Sulaco]

@blue's Editing I try to record my gaming related pixel graphics already upscaled, using either emulation or an xRGB-mini. If that doesn't work I use VirtualDub, which has Nearest Neighbour scaling. But it's a bit tricky to setup, depending on what file formats you are using for your source material.

Photoshop could be an option too, but there is a bug that prevent Nearest Neighbour scaling from working on a videoclip. I reported it four or five years ago, it was confirmed as a bug by Adobe. But they still haven't fixed it. 😒

[Blue's Editing]

I normally record the zoomed parts in 4k but having hours of that would be
too slow to edit, it's sad that such a good tool can't be used in a program
that costs so much a year.
I'll look into VirtualDub, but Adobe could help out a lot with this.

[Sulaco]

Yeah, I agree! Or at least read and understand our feedback properly and see what the problem really is. Lanczos is nowhere near viable for this!

[Aleksandar251057296naw]

Guys, there is a free plugin that offers nearest neighbor algorithm scaling. It's PixelPerfect from Autokroma.
There is additional parameter to control the algorithm and have a gradular shift between NN and lineal.

[Blue's Editing]

Didn't work the first time but now it is my go-to tool, thank you for
sharing!

[jimt18832954]

Every time I read this reply it makes me even madder lmao. It's been almost a year and this is what they left us with, a complete and utter refusal to even understand the problem on a basic level. 

[iainw3865060]

i use this as the adobe mailing list

[GundamVanguard]

Most of us are aware of it, but it and GPUresize are way too slow and not stable enough in larger projects.

It's such a basic feature we shouldn't need to use plug-ins to achieve it, or expect to.

[TheYeager]

Bumping this thread again so Adobe will add Bicubic scaling as an option in Premiere Pro. We need this feature. (It has always been an option in After Effects.) Not having it as an option in Premiere Pro is unbelievable. 

And in case anyone at Adobe does not understand exactly what I am referring to, checkout the explanation of Bilinear and Bicubic sampling from the After Effects user guide.


Roundtripping each clip I need scaled bicubically in Premiere Pro to After Effects and then back to Premiere Pro isn't a viable option. And it is a maddening workflow. The year is 2024. Please give us this feature in Premiere Pro. 

[ThioJoe]

Yes please add nearest neighbor scaling! It's essential for scaling really any small computer graphic including desktop icons, screenshots, etc.

The closest workaround I could come up with is something like a batch file like this that uses Image Magick to scale to whatever percentage you set. You can drag and drop an image onto it:

@ECho off
set "filepath=%~1"
set "dirname=%~dp1"
set "filename=%~n1"
set "extension=%~x1"

magick "%filepath%" -filter Point -resize 300%% "%dirname%%filename%-300%extension%"

That at least makes the image large enough where it should only have to be scaled down from its native size. Obviously still a pain to have to create a separate scaled version of the file!

[Sulaco]

@ThioJoe  Great to see more tips on how to get around this, thanks! Another option, that I have already mentioned I believe, is VirtualDub where you can also resize with Nearest Neighbour.

If you have an image sequence you can also use XnView MP where you can use the UI to batch convert and resize using Nearest Neighbour.

But yeah, as you say, it's still a pain!