Increase zoom resolution at 33, 66% ?

oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

Thanks!

Probably some plugin to use in your dream <bg>. Photoshop displays pretty much what the quality of the image may be, and combination with the monitor. And if you can see block of brick at 33-66% then I don’t think you have anything to complain about <bg>

Here, I often work on detailed portraiture (headshot) so zooming in 200-300+% to repair some damaged skin, fixing something so small that I need to zoom in 200-300+% so the repaired area won’t be visible on large print.

IOW, you may want to look at hi-rez image 10-12MP or so, and make sure no channel get messed up. I mean good IQ using good camera, good lens, good lighting, good setting etc..

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:18:58 -0700, oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

On the fly (fast) antialiassing (accurate smoothing) is much easier at these zooms because they are 1/4 , 1/2 and 3/4 zooms which are quick to do mathematically within the CPU (division by powers of two).

33% and 66% are more difficult to do fast.

I’m surprised though that PS has not solved this problem yet, especially with the speed of modern computers.

On a side note, if I have to physically scale down an image I try to go for 25% 50% or 75% for the same reason. Though again I may be stuck in the passed on this decision!

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

The resolution of the image is based on the pixels contained in the image. It has nothing to do with the display on the monitor. 33% of 100% of that image is showing the image at 33% of one.

What’s being pixelated is the pixels you’re looking at. Look at a 40mg image at 33% and look at a 3 mg image at 33% and you see way more pixels.

I don’t get what you’re describing.

On 9/15/07 6:44 PM, in article ,
"Joel" wrote:

oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

Thanks!

Probably some plugin to use in your dream <bg>. Photoshop displays pretty much what the quality of the image may be, and combination with the monitor. And if you can see block of brick at 33-66% then I don’t think you have anything to complain about <bg>

Here, I often work on detailed portraiture (headshot) so zooming in 200-300+% to repair some damaged skin, fixing something so small that I need to zoom in 200-300+% so the repaired area won’t be visible on large print.
IOW, you may want to look at hi-rez image 10-12MP or so, and make sure no channel get messed up. I mean good IQ using good camera, good lens, good lighting, good setting etc..

"oxjox" wrote in message

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

Thanks!

No. Any zoom level that isn’t dividable by 2 is going to look like shit. There is nothing that can be done. Doing screen smoothing would make it look like but then your image that must be accurate on screen would be in accurate. Adobe isn’t going to fake it to look nice and then listen to all of the complaints that "My imaged like this in Photoshop but looks like this in everything else."

The best and only thing to do is only use levels of zoom than can be evenly divided by 2. BTW on 100% it 100% accurate. 50% may look fine, but it is still only showing half of the images data.

Somebody!

Thanks everyone. This isn’t really heavy duty PS work – I’m building a touch panel gui for work at the moment. I’ve been using Photoshop for many years though and this is something that has bothered me since the beginning. There’s a big visual difference between say 50% and 75%, sometimes 66% is the perfect size to fit my screen, but it looks like crap.

Look at it like this. Any zoom resolution that can’t be evenly divided by 2 is going to leave you with half pixels. Photoshop can’t do squat with half pixels so to display that is has to much things up and compress it down and since they can’t anti-alias your image to smooth things out without making the image you see on screen inaccurate and make Photoshop as slow as a dead postmen climbing a hill in winter you can see why the zoomes that can’t be evenly divided in half are and will always look like crap.

Somebody!

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:34:22 -0700, "Somebody" wrote:

Look at it like this. Any zoom resolution that can’t be evenly divided by 2 is going to leave you with half pixels. Photoshop can’t do squat with half pixels so to display that is has to much things up and compress it down and since they can’t anti-alias your image to smooth things out without making the image you see on screen inaccurate

So you think that leaving out pixels is more accurate
than antialiasing?

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:18:58 -0700, oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

I was intrigued by this puzzle so I constructed a WEB page which illustrates that Photoshop is not very good at zooming, it should aim for what even old versions of Paint Shop Pro manage.

See this page:

http://www.ransen.com/zoom.htm

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

The fact you used vectors instead of pixels for your hack job shows you don’t know jack shit. Adobe chose not to anti-alias vectors in Photoshop to keep the response time fast. Had they decided to slow Photoshop down by anti-aliasing a vector on top of a high resolution bitmap people would have bitched.

Illustrator is for vectors, not Photoshop.

Sombody!

Owen Ransen wrote:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:18:58 -0700, oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

I was intrigued by this puzzle so I constructed a WEB page which illustrates that Photoshop is not very good at zooming, it should aim for what even old versions of Paint Shop Pro manage.
See this page:

http://www.xxxxxx.xxxx/zoom.htm

I would say it depends on the resolution. Example

– If you have 10,000 x 10,000 pixels which should be many times of your monitor screen. Then you can ZOOM 50-95+X (assuming you have your monitor set to 1*** x ****) and the image still look as sweetest as it could.

– Now, if you have 100 x 100 pixels then it’s another story.

Yes, both are images but they have different value.

In article ,
Owen Ransen wrote:

So you think that leaving out pixels is more accurate
than antialiasing?

No, but it sure is faster!

One thing that casual amateur Photoshop users often forget is that Photoshop is used in professional print applications, where images ranging from 400 MB to over a gigabyte in size are not uncommon. Anything Photoshop does must be able to scale.

—
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 13:46:45 -0700, "Somebody" wrote:

The fact you used vectors instead of pixels for your hack job

I will post the original bitmap and you can all try it for yourself. Here it is:

http://www.ransen.com/original.png

No vectors were used. It is large so you might like to download it to get a real idea of what it looks like. Some browsers will reduce the image to get it onto the screen.

I know exactly how it was made because it was made from a program I wrote:

http://www.ransen.com/gliftex/

I have intimate knowledge of the fact that it is a bitmap, though the PRO version *does* output vector versions for Illustrator etc.

shows you don’t know jack shit.

I was anti-aliasing images in 1984 when you probably thought it was a criminal act, if you thought at all.

Sombody!

You really are Nobody! Your arrogance and ignorance compete to make your posts pointless. Into the kill filter you go!

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:41:18 -0400, tacit wrote:

In article ,
Owen Ransen wrote:

So you think that leaving out pixels is more accurate
than antialiasing?

No, but it sure is faster!

Yes.

One thing that casual amateur Photoshop users often forget is that Photoshop is used in professional print applications, where images ranging from 400 MB to over a gigabyte in size are not uncommon. Anything Photoshop does must be able to scale.

That is a good point, but they could use buffers of various resolutions to images anti-aliased at different sizes to speed things up.

Computers have got much faster and have much more memory than when Photoshop was originally written.

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:29:24 -0500, Joel wrote:

Owen Ransen wrote:

On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:18:58 -0700, oxjox wrote:

When you’re viewing an image in PS, at the 25, 50, 75 and 100% resolutions the image looks great. WHen you zoom to 33 or 66% though the image is pixelated. For all the years I have used Photoshop, this has bugged the hell out of me. Is there a setting somewhere in the program or is there any sort of plugin I can install to make all zoom resolutions look as good as 100%?

I was intrigued by this puzzle so I constructed a WEB page which illustrates that Photoshop is not very good at zooming, it should aim for what even old versions of Paint Shop Pro manage.
See this page:

http://www.ransen.com/zoom.htm

I would say it depends on the resolution. Example

– If you have 10,000 x 10,000 pixels which should be many times of your monitor screen. Then you can ZOOM 50-95+X (assuming you have your monitor set to 1*** x ****) and the image still look as sweetest as it could.

But that is the point. In Photoshop the zooming gives a worse, less accurate image than an old version of PSP.

– Now, if you have 100 x 100 pixels then it’s another story.

Of course.

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

Owen Ransen wrote:

See this page:

http://www.xxxxx.xxx/zoom.htm

I would say it depends on the resolution. Example

– If you have 10,000 x 10,000 pixels which should be many times of your monitor screen. Then you can ZOOM 50-95+X (assuming you have your monitor set to 1*** x ****) and the image still look as sweetest as it could.

But that is the point. In Photoshop the zooming gives a worse, less accurate image than an old version of PSP.

I don’t remember all detail (only watched once), but believe it or not Photoshop (at least the current CSx) has around a dozen ways (or more?) to display more/less smooth.

And believe it or not, some mode anti-alias helps, but on some mode anti-alias does the oposite (or some combination?). Yes, I saw the video with my own eyes, but it’s more than what I need and my memory is no longer as sharpest as used to, so I don’t remember any detail to share.

But I just wanna lets you know that you need to know more before putting some wrong info on your web. And I am talking about zooming in 500-600+% til you can see screen filled with BIG SQUARES.

– Now, if you have 100 x 100 pixels then it’s another story.

Of course.

As I have mentioned in some other messages, that the more I know about Photoshop the lesser I think I know Photoshop.

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:27:55 -0500, Joel wrote:

But I just wanna lets you know that you need to know more before putting some wrong info on your web. And I am talking about zooming in 500-600+% til you can see screen filled with BIG SQUARES.

Do you mean big pixels?

Anti aliassing is not for smoothing big squares, it is for giving an accurate representation, at lower resolution, of a higher resolution image.

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

Owen Ransen wrote:

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:27:55 -0500, Joel wrote:

But I just wanna lets you know that you need to know more before putting some wrong info on your web. And I am talking about zooming in 500-600+% til you can see screen filled with BIG SQUARES.

Do you mean big pixels?

Anti aliassing is not for smoothing big squares, it is for giving an accurate representation, at lower resolution, of a higher resolution image.

I mean more visible square (pixel or zaggy), and I don’t mean about resolution of the whole image but even something like the EDGE of selection, and even more from circle comparing to straight-selection or square etc..

I can’t remember the option/step but somewhere between Anti-alias, Feather (2 different places and have to be correct one or in order), and 2-3+ other options or combinations. I can’t remember because of several different choices and combinations as well as in right order.

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:20:14 -0500, Joel wrote:

I mean more visible square (pixel or zaggy), and I don’t mean about resolution of the whole image but even something like the EDGE of selection, and even more from circle comparing to straight-selection or square etc..
I can’t remember the option/step but somewhere between Anti-alias, Feather (2 different places and have to be correct one or in order), and 2-3+ other options or combinations. I can’t remember because of several different choices and combinations as well as in right order.

I cannnot find any info on zooming with antialiasing in the help files, though I could well be looking in the wrong place…!

All I could find was help for "image interpolation" which had nothing to do with viewing or zooming the image, but had to do with resizing and saving of images in various formats.

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

Owen Ransen wrote:

On Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:20:14 -0500, Joel wrote:

I mean more visible square (pixel or zaggy), and I don’t mean about resolution of the whole image but even something like the EDGE of selection, and even more from circle comparing to straight-selection or square etc..
I can’t remember the option/step but somewhere between Anti-alias, Feather (2 different places and have to be correct one or in order), and 2-3+ other options or combinations. I can’t remember because of several different choices and combinations as well as in right order.

I cannnot find any info on zooming with antialiasing in the help files, though I could well be looking in the wrong place…!

I almost never look at the help file, and as I mentioned the info I saw from a Video Tutorial of some Photoshop experted. And if I am not mistaken the video tutorial is part of the CS2 tutorial.

I don’t think you can get much detailed info from help file, and lot of trick and deeper information you can only get from user-to-user (or something like commercial video tutorial).

All I could find was help for "image interpolation" which had nothing to do with viewing or zooming the image, but had to do with resizing and saving of images in various formats.

In general Help File usually cover very general information, and since Photoshop has almost unlimited features/options that make Photoshop manual and help file become very limited and poor. That’s one of the reasons why there are so many books about Photoshop for many different level.

And when you know Photoshop pretty well, or have some specific interest (especiall detailed work like portraiture) then it’s very hard to find book or video that covers very detailed about portraiture. Yes, some book and video do mention about portraiture but very general, or few dirty repair trick but they often won’t work in real life (especially when you do for printing and large print etc..).

Yes, I have run into a short video tutorial about portraiture retouching in German (I can’t understand the language but can understand the process), and it seems pretty good (or because I have been using the similar tricks?).

What I am trying to say that those you can’t find in manual or help file, and special interest is very rare (especially video tutorial about retouching *not* using poor low-rez image or messed up channel to fool other with the repairing trick).

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 07:47:59 -0500, Joel wrote:

I don’t think you can get much detailed info from help file

I think that if there were options for zoom antialiasing they would at least be mentioned in the help file.

In the program itself there is nothing under "preferencies" or "options".

My conclusion is that it is not possible to change how
Photoshop magnifies images when zooming.

(I’m not talking about resizing images, which is another kettle of fish)

I’m willing to be educated though, if anyone can point me to the zoom quality settings dialog (or something similar).

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

Owen Ransen wrote:

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 07:47:59 -0500, Joel wrote:

I don’t think you can get much detailed info from help file

I think that if there were options for zoom antialiasing they would at least be mentioned in the help file.

In the program itself there is nothing under "preferencies" or "options".

My conclusion is that it is not possible to change how
Photoshop magnifies images when zooming.

I didn’t think or never have paid any attention to it until I saw the video which shows the differences between option’s and order’s.

(I’m not talking about resizing images, which is another kettle of fish)

And I am talking about you even seeing lot more detail of a very tiny part of the whole image (1/xxxx of the whole image) like the EDGE that you have to ZOOM IN many times to compare the difference.

I’m willing to be educated though, if anyone can point me to the zoom quality settings dialog (or something similar).

I believe it was one of the Lynda video tutorials, and I just can’t remember which one. I know they have many samples available online (free for online viewing), but don’t know which to point to you.

"Joel" wrote in message
[re zoom preview quality]

I believe it was one of the Lynda video tutorials, and I just can’t remember which one. I know they have many samples available online (free for online viewing), but don’t know which to point to you.

Maybe you’re thinking of the "Pixel Doubling" option under Prefs>Display and Cursors. This speeds up preview of certain operations, such as transform, by temporarily reducing the resolution of the preview.

At the end of the day, I’m fairly sure that Owen is correct. Adobe does not provide a way to improve the quality of Photoshop’s zoom. But zoom resampling is an interesting subject – to some of us anyway – that is seldom discussed here.

There are other situations where the current zoom quality is bothersome. Once a year or so, someone will post an image that does not seem to combine with other layers the way it should, and it’s often due to poor zoom resampling. Go to 100 percent, and the problem goes away. For example finely hatched textures can change color, or even turn black at certain zoom factors. So the overall brightness of dithered images, such as indexed mode web graphics can change appearance in a surprising way.

Internally, Photoshop does use a clever method of image storage called an image pyramid. Each level of the pyramid is half the resolution of the previous level. So level zero is 100 percent, level one 50 percent, etc. The beauty of this scheme is that the additional storage for each level is only 1/4 the amount of the previous level. Sampling at the exact resolution of one of the levels wills give a good result, as Owen and others have mentioned. Intermediate levels, not so good, since they rely on a very fast and dirty resampling method, probably bilinear instead of bicubic.

But pyramid schmeramid, I can hear some of you saying. Zoom’s a solved problem, right? Wrong. It would seem easy to do a good bicubic resample. Even inexpensive video boards have hardware acceleration, and there are universal software interfaces to access these functions. Still, I don’t really fault Adobe for the lower quality of the zooms. Consider all the complexity that is added when you have various layers, layer effects, adjustment layers, filters, and recently smart filters, at work, and you can imagine how complex that piece of – ahem – *code* would be to rewrite. Adobe also exposes a considerable amount of the pyramid structure, and the underlying image tile storage, to plugin developers, so add the problem of maintaining compatibility with third party plugins that rely on the pyramid structure for preview.

It would take someone of great stature at Adobe to understand the internals, gather up all the loose ends, and recode a bicubic resize version of the pyramid. Frankly, I would rather have that person do something like write Adobe Camera Raw, or implement color management. Either that, or clean up after the person who did the first pass at each of these, LOL. Either of those projects would probably be simpler to do and would have ten times the benefit to the Photoshop community.

— Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:43:37 GMT, "Mike Russell" wrote:

Internally, Photoshop does use a clever method of image storage called an image pyramid.

Yes, I was initially flumoxed by that when reading the help files for the SDK. I’m still not sure I’ve really grokked it!

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:19:19 -0700, oxjox wrote:

Thanks everyone. This isn’t really heavy duty PS work – I’m building a touch panel gui for work at the moment. I’ve been using Photoshop for many years though and this is something that has bothered me since the beginning. There’s a big visual difference between say 50% and 75%, sometimes 66% is the perfect size to fit my screen, but it looks like crap.

Why don’t you resize the image so that at 50% zoom it is just right and at 100% it is big enough to do detailed work?

I have a similar problem with a tiny GUI for a ligthing controller.

Easy to use graphics effects:
http://www.ransen.com/