CS4 Content Aware Scale….poor results?

M
Posted By
Maxxlava
Oct 20, 2008
Views
292
Replies
8
Status
Closed
I have big hopes (and more than a few jobs) that will benefit from this new feature, but after several attempts, I am left frustrated. The demos look amazing, but after trying it on small (1 meg), medium & large (150 meg) files I am left wondering if this will actually be as useful as first imagined.

In a nutshell, the post-stretched images are lousy, with horrible stair-stepping visible at even 25% screen magnification (the stepping definitely would be visible in print). The aliasing I am seeing are clumpy, stretched, jpeggy-looking artifacts that are apparent in any area of even slight contrast.

Unless I have chosen the wrong random test images (???) or have missed something I should be doing, I am really disappointed.

Before I go off too much, I am wondering if anyone else has done much testing or noodling around enough to pass along your opinion.

I am seeing the behavior when stretching either horizontally, OR vertically, and the stepping is apparent at almost any amount of stretching (no need to exaggerate by stretching to 200%)

Any opinions or thoughts welcomed.
Related Tags
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ashleykaryl
Oct 22, 2008
I have tried this on a dozen images with both vertical and horizontal attempts either increasing or decreasing the size and the quality is always horrible (unusable) with the same effects that you describe unless the changes are limited to about 10% max. I agree that the demos always look impressive but they never show the details in the demos. I have followed 2 or 3 tutorials but at 100% the results are horrendous. Either we are both doing something very wrong or content aware scaling is a disaster.
M
Maxxlava
Oct 22, 2008
A better term for the artifacting is "shearing"…large chunks of aliased, interpolated pixels.

I have re-watched several demos as well, but the onscreen resolution of the demos, along with no close-ups on the final image will not show the issue.

Really hope this is just an early implementation of what could be a stellar feature.

It’s unusable in its present form. Unless you are demoing it 😉
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ashleykaryl
Oct 22, 2008
No demo in use here. I purchased CS4 at the inflated UK prices as soon as it was announced and agree that this is disappointing to the point that I really hope we are doing something wrong. Surely Adobe wouldn’t release something this bad and promote it as a key development in CS4?

I realised that there might be some quality issues with really large increases but I wasn’t expecting it to completely destroy a file where the size was being decreased. On areas with grass I see strange areas which are completely blurred and then the same weird shearing effect that you have mentioned that could almost look like strange shards of glass.
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 22, 2008
Can you point us to example images that don’t work well for you?
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ashleykaryl
Oct 23, 2008
So far its been every image I’ve tried. How can I get some files to you?
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Maxxlava
Oct 23, 2008
Same here. I’ve yet to have an image look acceptable. The areas of little or no contrast show no shearing, but a slight change in the background contrast brings about the aliasing.
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ashleykaryl
Oct 23, 2008
Yes I agree, an area like skies with no real details will probably not look too bad but throw in some grass or rocks and it soon becomes a messy story.
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 23, 2008
Point us to a URL for the image, or contact me directly and arrange to transfer larger images.

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