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I just finished a Photoshop project at 1600x3200 that involves several images and multiple lines of text. Upon saving the image as a .tif, I uploaded the image to Imgur. Once uploaded, I went into Imgur's editor and noticed that I liked the editor's default display of the image at a lower resolution (950x1900 to be exact) more than the full size (1600x3200) version of the same image. It looked crisp, legible and exactly what I wanted out of the project. Note, I didn't do anything in the editor, all I did was look at the image.

Upon this discovery, I decided to go back into photoshop and resize the image myself to 950x1900. This resulted in a far inferior version of the image than how the original file was displayed at 950x1900. The text is nearly as legible and there artifacts all over the place. For the past few hours I've been trying to find a solution to the problem - eventually coming across a few questions on this website - but nothing has worked. I would just save the high resolution 950x1900 image from the Imgur editor but that's apparently impossible.

Here are screenshots from a section of each image that demonstrate the difference in quality. Sadly, I'm on a MacBook with Retina Display so my screenshot settings are a little goofy but these do accurately represent what I'm talking about:

I have no idea how to properly word my question because I'm a newbie at graphic design, so here are a few that should cover all my bases of confusion.

  1. How can I resize my image to 950x1900 so that it looks like the original version of the image displayed at 950x1900 in the Imgur editor?
  2. Assuming a worst case scenario where I have to redo this whole project from scratch, what are some precautions I can take in the future to avoid this problem?
  3. Why does an image of a higher dimensions displayed at a lower dimensions look so sharp? I've noticed it in video editing software when taking a 1080p video and putting it into 720p settings. Is this some sort of trick my mind is playing on me?
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  • I tried both, neither worked.
    – Alex Ewing
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:13
  • That's the problem with the damn screenshots on this Retina display. If I sent you the image files and you uploaded it yourself, you could see what I'm talking about.
    – Alex Ewing
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:22
  • I took another pair of screen shots. Here, you can clearly see the difference. Original in Editor: i.imgur.com/qQZYmLK.png Resize: i.imgur.com/p0yMzKA.png
    – Alex Ewing
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:24
  • Correct, that's how it appears when I take a look at it in the Imgur image editor. Basically, I want to reduce my image to the size displayed in the editor (950x1900) with that level of sharpness and quality, yet it seems like that's somehow impossible.
    – Alex Ewing
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:46
  • Well, you probably can cheat. Upload the file, download the resulting file... and upload it again. Xo) But I would prefer sharpen the image by myself.
    – Rafael
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:51

1 Answer 1

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Probably the imgur resizing algorithm includes a sharpen function. Try aplying some sharpening yourself.

Menu > Filter > Sharpen

There are several filters you can use, so try them with the default options and see if they work for you, but you can try with "Smart Sharpen"

Here are some video tutorials from the adobe help center to understand a little mor the options in the dialog box. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/how-to/photoshop-sharpen-photos.html.

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  • Becouse the way this line looks otake.com.mx/Foros/Imgur-SharpEdge.png in my opinion it is very likely it has a sharpen process. Offtopic. I think "very likely" is diferent than "without any doubt"; it leaves open the posibility of being wrong. Perhaps I should use the word "probably"? :o)
    – Rafael
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:47
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    It is now edited :o)
    – Rafael
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:54
  • its probably not a sharpen, if you would use a lanczos filter you would get much sharper results than the filters photoshop uses. So no thy do not necceserily sharpen after scale, photoshop is just slightly retarded.
    – joojaa
    Commented Jan 19, 2015 at 5:10

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