Adjustments Made while Zoomed In?

Stinklove · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject: Adjustments Made while Zoomed In?

My boss sent me am image that is already compressed and is very small. He wants me to make adjustments to this tiny thing. I zoomed in and tried to make adjustments. It appears that a lack of available pixels (because it is so small and already compressed) limits me to what I can do. My boss assures me that photoshop is so smart that I have to zoom out to this tiny image and the corrections will be fine. Is this true? When you have an image and zoom in does photoshop treat the corrections differently that if you are zoomed out of the same exact image?

I have added the image I am talking about. He wants me to take a clipart in the form of a shopping cart and place it in the circle to the left. I have to resize any clip art I use because of the image itself which causes the clip art to crunch and look like crap.

Matt · VIP

Hi Stinklove,
As long as things look good when viewing it at 100% you haven't got a problem. When you're working at a high zoom level, things won't look great, but as you return to that 100% you should see an improvement. 100% is how you will see it on the web.
Hope that helps

Stinklove · Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:13 am Post subject:

I understand and thank you for your input. But is it or is it not true that if you make corrections to an image while zoomed in the correction is treated the same as if you applied them while zoomed out? My boss believes that depending on the zoom level while making corrections that ps will treat them differently. I believe that it looks like crap up close because you are up close and its the exact same photo whether you are up close or far away... ps does not treat corrections differently depending on the zoom level.

Matt · VIP

You're absolutely correct. The zoom ratio doesn't change how the image reacts to modifications.
Hope that helps

paladyn · Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 11:36 pm Post subject:

The image, including background, is 99px W x 28px H. The area inside the blue circle with the arrow is 19px diameter. That's it. No matter what your boss says, 19 pixels is all you have to work with.

Now, that said, there are approaches you can take. If you have Illustrator, you can trace the image to convert it to a vector image. Vector images do not comprise pixels, but rather mathematical expressions which represent the image. Consequently, they can be scaled infinitely without pixelation or distortion.

If Illy isn't an option, you have another choice. Use Image|Image Size to scale the image upward to the point that you can work with it. To do so with the least amount of pixelation distortion, resize only in increments of ten percent. Make sure that Constrain Proportions is turned on, and that Bicubic Smoother is the interpolation method (better for upsizing).

By working with small increments of 10%, the interpolation algorithm is working with small amounts of data per iteration and can be much more accurate. Since you start at 99 pixels wide, make the first increment to 110px wide. Make the second increment to 121px wide (110 + 11). Make the third to 133 px wide (121 + 12), and so forth. When you're at the point where you can comfortably work within that circle, stop.

Do your edits, then when you're finished, resize downward in a similar fashion, although you can use larger increments if you wish. Interpolation is much more accurate downsizing than upsizing, since the algorithm is averaging existing adjacent pixels instead of creating new ones by what amounts to intelligent guessing.

Hope this helps.

paladyn

Stinklove · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:12 pm Post subject:

Thank you very much

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