Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

MaxPower2k3 · Mar 13, 2005, 01:34 PM

This is a frequent problem for me with Preview. When I open some larger images (even some medium-sized ones, but it seems to pick them randomly) preview scales it down to fit on the screen, but then uses that scaled version as the "actual size". So, if i zoom in, i get a pixelated, low-resolution image, even if the actual file has a much higher resolution.

For instance (this is an extreme case), I have a panoramic image (comprised of a bunch of pictures i took stitched together) that is 20,677x1742. When I open it in preview, it treats it like it's approximately 1200x100 pixels. If i zoom in, i get a scaled-up version of that, not the full resolution in the file.

Does this happen for anyone else? It's very annoying, and it means I often have to open large images in FireFox (Safari is too slow handling big images) rather than preview

Thanks,
Max

Mithras · Mar 13, 2005, 01:49 PM

Uncheck Preferences:Images:Respect DPI for "actual size"
Preview is showing the image "real-world" actual size, rather than pixel-for-pixel actual size.

EDIT: Hmm, read your question more carefully. I haven't seen that behavior you're describing, actually. But maybe the DPI issue still plays a role?

MaxPower2k3 · Mar 13, 2005, 01:56 PM

Well, that helped. After unchecking the 'Respect DPI' and 'Scale down images' options, the image now loads at approximately one third of it's actual size. An improvement, but still not correct. odd.

edit: the image is 240 DPI and should be approximately 86x7.25" printed, so i don't think the DPI would cause it to be around 11x1" on the screen.

arekkusu · Mar 13, 2005, 11:07 PM

Preview in 10.3 has a max image size of around 4k x 4k. It won't show anything bigger.

Remember, it's called "Preview". Not "Do Everything View".

MaxPower2k3 · Mar 14, 2005, 04:48 PM

Originally posted by arekkusu:
Preview in 10.3 has a max image size of around 4k x 4k. It won't show anything bigger.

Remember, it's called "Preview". Not "Do Everything View".

It happens with images much smaller than that. Sorry for thinking an image viewer could allow me to view an image. I guess i was expecting too much...

Mithras · Mar 14, 2005, 10:03 PM

Can you come up with some examples, and host them somewhere? I'd be interested to try them out here, and maybe we could work out a minimal test case.