Hot answers tagged scaling
14
The answer applies both to vector and to rasterized icons.
If quality matters, you can't.
Large icons contain more details. Those details, which are nice on a 128×128 icon, would be disturbing on a 32×32 icon; instead of helping visually identify the icon, they will do the opposite. For example, a large icon of a keyboard may contain every key of the ...
5
The very short answer is "No."
Oldstyle figures ("lowercase") are specifically drawn that way. Legacy Postscript and TrueType fonts, for the most part, contain only tabular figures, which are lining or oldstyle according to the way the font is designed.
The Unicode Consortium isn't suggesting that lining figures can be distorted into oldstyle figures, ...
5
I would scale then Index - I can't think of a technical reason why, but.. If in doubt try it both ways, it won't take long and you can compare them both afterwards to see which best fits the purpose.
[added]:
Scale, then index:
Index, then scale:
4
320 / 541 = .591 (that is, 320 pixels is 59.1% of 541 pixels)
600 * .591 = 354.6 (so 354.6 is 59.1% of 600)
rounded up to 355 pixels
There's your width; do the same calculations for the height.
//edit for height:
240 / 341 = .704
449 * .704 = 316.1
round down to 316px
4
As you probably know, the viewing distance of two feet is ludicrous. If people were going to view whatever this is from two feet, it wouldn't need to be 34 feet tall. When people get up close to something that big, they're used to seeing image issues.
From a reasonable distance (20 plus feet?), Scott has the right idea. Depending on the photo, the ...
4
The absolute best way to work is create the document using only vector shapes, layer styles and (if you have to) Smart Objects that are high enough resolution to cover the @2x size.
If constructed properly, your document can be scaled up and down with no loss at all — Photoshop will rerender shapes and layer styles at size, so they'll be as good as ...
4
Converting to a smart object won't change the quality when the image is reduced, it will only allow you to resize the image afterwards back to normal without loss of quality.
Convert to smart object anyway, as it's good practice.
Go to Settings -> General
Change 'Image Interpolation' to 'Bicubic sharper' see if that helps maintain some detail.
4
Essentially, you have to draw or re-draw your small icon. Ideally you work from a vector based version that you scale down and then tweak the details on pixel-level, but scaling down a rastered version will work, too. Your scaling results will be better, if you scale exactly 50%, 25%, 12.5%, etc, because photoshop has to blur less between pixels. ...
4
I would add a stroke to the shapes, as a stroke would be consistent Then you can expand your object so that the stroke is a shape as well.
So just draw your shape, put a stroke on it, then go to Object -> Expand. Then fill your expanded shape, now you have two separate shapes, one of which is scaled up properly to your initial shape.
EDIT
You can ...
3
Unfortunately, for raster data, upsizing will always result in a quality loss.
If the .psd is set up with vector or shape layers, then there should be little issue upsizing. Image > Image Size and input 200%.
It is preferable to work with vector or shape layers whenever possible and to work at the retina (2x) size.
Reducing raster data will generally ...
3
You cannot "reformat" the PDF in a way that will make it appropriate.
You can do things to extract the image, and you can fuss with the numbers (pixel dimensions, dpi) so that the resulting file will conform to their specification. However, this will only play with the numbers and the quality will be the same as if they just used the PDF you submitted, ...
3
In a situation like this, there's no harm at all in asking for clarification. As you and Scott already noted, "Scaling" can apply to several different design situations -- scaling vector artwork, building large-format artwork in a smaller-scale/higher-resolution (common in grande format and billboard work), resizing images and working to scale as in maps and ...
3
I would take a different approach to this, because the task is like wishing for the moon. There's no unicorn filter in Photoshop yet. (And I'm surprised nobody has so far pointed out that Photoshop's pixel limit for a PSD is 30,000 in either dimension, so 86,400 would only be achievable by slicing the image into separate files and enlarging those.)
The ...
3
There's not really a problem including raster images provided you know the final output.
Raster images, inside a vector app or not, always have the same limitations in terms of scaling. Placing a raster image into a vector app does not make it resolution independent.
With that in mind, it's really your call.
If you need infinite scalability, then you ...
3
import the vector paths and raster images into illustrator and redo layout. Illustrator CS5 has in the transform pallet a check box for constrain to pixel grid.
Select all of your vector paths and check this box. Then when you resize it will stay aligned to the pixel grid.
It may be some work but if your raster images are placed from photoshop and your ...
3
Ok, I've worked this one out. Photoshop has a single, global setting to determine the scaling algorithm used, for everything. It is in Preferences > General > Image Interpolation. Setting this will make all image scale transforms use this algorithm.
So set this to nearest neighbour, perform the scale, change it back, is the rather tedious solution.
UPDATE ...
2
Control+click the layer's icon (for the layer that you want to stroke) in the layer palette in order to select the entire layer.
Create a new layer.
Fill the new layer with white, black, or any color that you want.
Set the new layer's "Fill" to 0% in the layer palette.
Double-click the new layer's icon in the layer palette (or select it and click "FX" at ...
2
"Scale" from the Transform menu is a sort of all-encompassing term; once selected it lets you proportionally scale, scale in one dimension, skew, distort, rotate etc. This is usually an easier solution for most users since it means they don't have to jump back and forth between "Scale", "Rotate", etc. in the tool palette.
The "scale" tool palette option ...
2
This particular set is composed of shapes and text, so resizing is not going to impact quality, but you can't just downsize these icons. An icon is a special kind of infographic. Its purpose is to communicate easily-recognized information at any given size, so your first step, before you start scaling anything, is to identify what parts of the icon carry the ...
2
Check the Transform Panel with the objects selected. Is Align to Pixel Grid checked? If so uncheck it.
However, if you're creating web images, Align to Pixel Grid is actually a godo thing. It ensures strokes and fills fall exactly on a pixel so you get as little anti-aliasing as possible and often will help smaller images appear much sharper.
Ignore all ...
2
There ain't no such thing as "DPI" in an Illustrator document, except when you're referring to applied raster effects. There are no dots, so there can't be any "dots per inch". The maximum document dimension of 227.54 inches (actually 16383 points) is a constraint in the way that Illustrator holds the dimensions internally, a legacy of its original purpose: ...
2
Little confused....
Title mentions Photoshop, but you tagged it with Illustrator. I edited the title since your screen shots are clearly Illustrator.
In Illustrator, check the Preferences. Preferences > General > Scale Strokes & Effect. If that option is not checked, then strokes and effect retain their original size when you scale objects.
Oh, to ...
2
Off the bat..
Place image in Adobe Illustrator
Use the Live Trace feature to convert the photo to vectors
Scale all you want.
It's best to import the photo as large as possible to get as much detail as possible with Live Trace. And Live Trace tends to work better if photos are not exceptionally intricate. But it's a possible solution.
Sticking with ...
2
An alternative to Illustrator's livetrace could be a halftone-like effect. The Size By Luminance script for Illustrator (look at the colour circle examples at the bottom) takes pixelated raster images and turns them into stylised, potentially full-colour halftone-like vector images that will then be scalable without looking accidentally pixelised.
If the ...
2
Scaling can often refer to increasing the scope of a project.
Project starts with a small piece. Later it's decided there are some collateral items which are needed and the design needs to be consistent with the original project. This would be scaling the project.
It's a bit difficult to answer specifically without knowing the exact question.
2
Your method already seems like the best way to do it (using coordinates and calculator that is).
However, if you need to do it for too many items you could write a gimp-script that saves you time. Here's a tutorial on how to write those : http://gimp.open-source-solution.org/manual/gimp-using-script-fu-tutorial-first-script.html
2
It will depend on how the image are stored in your own PDF file: as you can see in this Wikipedia article about the PDF imaging model, the image could be either vector graphics or raster graphics.
You should be able to extract images from your PDF using tools such as Some PDF Images Extract.
In the case of vector graphics, you would be able to upscale them ...
2
"Content-aware scale" is for stretching rather than scaling up. So thats not an option.
It really depends on how your Photoshop file is set up, if e.g. there are textures that need to not be scaled or if everything in designed in layerstyles.
So, the best quick and dirty method would be using Image Interpolation: Nearest Neighbor as this would simply ...
2
I would convert your layers to one smart object so you can resize it without quality loss. Plus "Unsharp Mask" filter for the smart object.
UPDATE:
You must do all modifications (resize, sharp, effects etc.) before you export the end image. The photoshop smart object can be resized without quality loss. So after you are ready with layout of the icon - just ...
2
When designing for a variety of resolutions you want to scale down, not up. Do your design in a @2x resolution (640 x 960 @72ppi) and for the @1x assets you duplicate them to a new document (preferably) and scale them down by 50%. You can set up a Action script for this also to make the process go by faster. To learn a bit about Photoshop action script you ...
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