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Thread: why is transform tool ruining my art?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
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    13

    why is transform tool ruining my art?

    Thanks for any help!
    When I use the transform tool and resize down 92% it blurs and pixelizes my work. These are art brochures that go into galleries so I can't have this.
    Please.. how do I avoid this problem. And if I first need to re-size using the resize tool can someone please give me instructions. I don't seem to have a knack with that tool.
    Again THANK YOU!!! Regina

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
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    2,223
    Hello Regina and welcome to the ArtRage forums
    In general that shouldn’t be happening, but in practice it may, given the right conditions!
    Are you scaling down the whole contents of the canvas or just some elements within it?
    When you say that you are “resizing down 92%”, that is quite a drastic amount! Or are you saying that this is the number you are entering into the % field in the Transform window? Which would actually mean a reduction in size of only 8%.

    If you can give the exact steps you were taking, that can often help point to what may be going wrong.
    Can you post some screenshots of what you are seeing? Before and after sort of things.

    The canvas setting may well be important here too; what size, in pixels, is the canvas you are working on and what dpi is it using?
    When you see the pixilation, at what zoom level are you viewing this canvas at?

    It may or may not be a relevant here, but there is in AR’s Preferences > Advanced, an option for ‘Force whole pixel placement’. Turning this On can help in some circumstances prevent blurring when moving and resizing thing. I’ve always left it ‘On’.
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Posts
    13

    thanks

    Hi Mark.. Thank you for replying! I very much appreciate it!
    my steps are:
    *I go into files and open a new painting
    *I then size the canvas in inches...8x11 inches... 72 dpi
    *I then drag photos from my desktop to my canvas and import each as a layer...
    the imported photo's usually always cover the entire canvas with still much of the photo not even showing.
    So I am not trying to resize the canvas.. just the imported photos.
    The transform box always automatically pops up and this is when I see the 100% field is already in both the width and length and I then change both dimensions in the field box to a much less 8%. This dramatically decreases the size of the imported photos but also blurs and shows pixelization in most of the the photos.

    Im sorry but I dont see how I can attach a photo. The 'manage attachments' box is popping up with a black box instead of offering to let me choose files.

    * I checked.. and I also have 'forced Pixel placement' checked.

    This is a head scratcher. Maybe I need to contact AR and have them change out my program or something... since I have no idea what my key is.

    What do you think?
    Again Thank You!! Regina

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
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    2,223
    Thanks for the extra info, much appreciated
    Well, the short answer here is a lack of pixel density. You are simply running out of sufficient pixels, after scaling down your images, to correctly render them.
    Scaling pixel based (raster) images is always tricky at the extremes.
    You start with a fixed number of pixels making up the original image.
    Scale up, and the software has to enlarge the pixels it has, or if capable, make up new ones to fill up the extra area. But things can soon become fuzzy or pixelated when doing this.
    Scaling down has a bit more leeway, as generally software only has to throw out pixels and not make anything up.
    But there will always come a point when the number of pixels left to work with just isn’t sufficient to continue to clearly depict the original image.

    Having a sufficiently large enough canvas to place your images into is also an important factor here too.
    Your canvas of only 576px x 792px just isn’t large enough, especially if you intend to print it to make brochures.
    A more appropriate canvas size for an 8x11 brochure would be 2400px x 3300px, with a dpi set to 300.
    However with that said if you are fitting a lot of images of existing paintings into this canvas, you may want to consider upping the receiving canvas’s pixel density even further to 4800px x 6600px @600dpi in order to maintain an acceptable level of clarity in the individual placed images.
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  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
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    Australia
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    Forgive me Mark for butting in but I wonder the method I use would cause blurring. I use the 'handles' to resize the images to make them fit on the canvas. (Or have I misunderstood the question?)


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    June.

    Oh God of homeless things, look down
    And try to ease the way
    Of all the little weary paws
    That walk the world
    today.
    -
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
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    Hi June,
    No, there should be no difference between using the handles or typing in a % number directly when Transforming.
    As you resize with the handles you can see the percentage numbers changing in real time.

    But while I’m here…
    I think I might just add to what I was saying earlier as there is another important variable I perhaps should have mentioned.
    That of the pixel density of the images being placed into another document will also need to be considered. They too will have to have a reasonable starting density to allow shrinkage of 92%, which is a huge amount.
    If the images being reduced, were for the sake of argument, of a similar size i.e 576px x 792px, regardless of the document's size they were going into, after shrinking by 92% they would only measure approximately 47px x 63px which probably just isn’t going to be enough to show their original image clearly.
    Though if the details in these original images are fairly abstract with little fine detail then you might just get away with it?
    A Mondrian painting would lend itself much better to a drastic size reduction like this than a sketch by Dura would, for example.

    When it comes to digital raster images, maintaining quality really is all about the pixel count.
    Last edited by markw; 10-26-2021 at 12:32 PM.
    Maker Of Replica Macoys

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  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Posts
    11
    I don't trust the resize tools of ArtRage. The best solution I have found is to export to Photoshop the layer/painting as .png and apply all the necessary manipulations. ArtRage is wonderful for painting, Photoshop is the king for pixel manipulation.

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