Member Avatar for suavedesign

I am a beginner designer.
Many times, when I download an image (from Shutterstock, for example), and then place that image in my document in Photoshop, the placed image in my document is smaller than the image that I downloaded. For example, I download an image that is 1000px by 1000px. (And when I open that image with Windows Photo Viewer, I can see that those are the dimensions.)
Then I place the same image in a Photoshop document, and the image dimensions are smaller! (Just to be sure, I tried opening a document with the dimensions that the image is supposed to have, and the image does not take up the entire canvas.)
This is a problem, because I then have to enlarge the image, so it becomes blurry.

Any suggestions? This happens to me all the time!

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by macgurl70

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what you are seeing is almost always a resolution (ppi) mismatch during Place. Photoshop honors the placed file’s physical size (inches/cm) and the destination document’s resolution. So a 1000x1000 image tagged at 300 ppi has a print size of ~3.33 in. If you Place it into a 72 ppi canvas, Photoshop initially draws it at 3.33 in x 72 ppi ≈ 240x240 px, which looks much smaller than 1000 px. That is expected behavior, not a bug. Also, if the placed art is larger than the canvas, Photoshop may auto-scale it to fit on placement. ()

Quick workflow to get 1:1 sizing without quality loss:

  • Before placing: open the stock image, choose Image > Image Size, uncheck Resample, set Resolution to match your destination document (e.g., 72 for screen comps or 300 for print), OK. This changes only metadata, not pixels. Now Place the file; it will drop in at the expected scale. ()
  • Or Place first (it becomes a Smart Object), then double-click the Smart Object, go to Image Size, uncheck Resample, set its Resolution to the document’s value, save/close the Smart Object, and set the placed layer to 100% scale. ()

Notes:

  • is right about resolution being the culprit; small terminology tweak: use ppi for images (dpi is for printers). You can verify all this in Image > Image Size. ()
  • , window size does not change pixel size; matching document dimensions and resolution does. ()
  • If your asset exceeds the canvas, the preference Edit > Preferences > General > Resize Image During Place can scale it to fit on import; that does not fix ppi mismatches though. ()
  • As said, avoid upscaling; start from a larger stock download and scale down to keep it sharp. ()

If you adopt the ppi-matching step before Place, your 1000x1000 images will fill a 1000x1000 canvas as expected, with no blurriness.

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Member Avatar for sufyan2011

This may be because your photoshop window size is less than your image size. Do one thing, go to "Image" menu of photoshop and set the size according to your image size (say 1000X1000), then go to "File" menu and "Place" image from your folder. It should be good, use move tool to set it fit in window. (I am sorry, I don't have PhotoShop now in my system, so menu item may be slight different)

Member Avatar for cpchc

I'm willing to bet that your Photoshop document is a higher resolution than the image you are downloading from the web. If you are designing for print, HD video, or tablets (like iPad), your document may very well be set at 300dpi or higher (dots per inch). Web graphics are 72dpi. So while it may be 1000x1000 pixels at 72dpi, at 300dpi it will be a much smaller image. You can drag up the size on your own, but it will result in diminishing the quality of the image (pixilization, blurriness). Despite what CSI tells us, there is no way to effectively fill in image information and make a low resolution image look good at a higher resolution.

In Photoshop go to Image > Image size and check the dpi of both images there.

Member Avatar for macgurl70

I attached a screenshot from Shutterstock's website. If you want a good size image for print, look at the dpi they list by the image. I put a red box around the one I would choose for print purposes. It is always better to have a larger image and size down.

If you are choosing the smaller sizes, or the thumbnail, on the Shutterstock site you will get the results cpchc described since you cannot add information to a photoshop file (make the existing image file larger by changing values).

Think of it like silly putty (hope I am not aging myself here) - but once you get an image on the silly putty, it is at the size of the original. Now, when you stretch the silly putty, you get a distorted view and it loses definition because nothing has been added to the image to keep it crisp/in focus.

ShuttterStockExample.jpg 34.12 KB
Edited by macgurl70 because: I can speel
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