Blurry Images.. Still

Jan 07, 2019

Hi all, 

 

This seems to be an issue many people are talking about but I can't find a definitive answer without having to trawl multiple threads and links. 

It would appear that Storyline is not fit for purpose when it comes to inserting images. Even when I'm trying to use the 'Try-it mode' on screen recording, the start and end frame is blurred regardless of what resolution, size, quality of screen grab I insert into Storyline. 

I would think it should be quite simple to do and fix, but appears not to be. 

I thought the major selling point of using Articulate was that it 'Automatically scales to mobile and tablet', if the only workarounds (which are far from perfect and still blurred), are fixing image sizes, or player sizes etc.. then this removes the automatic scaling onto mobile devices and means we have to develop the course mobile ready. 

I'm in the process of deciding whether as a business we should curate in Articulate, or the Adobe Suite, and this problem is unfortunately making us lean away from Articulate. I've found no way to make these images High Quality and would appreciate an easy way to do this.

72 Replies
Nancee Klein

I have updated to the most recent version and I'm still having this issue.  I too feel like we pay enough for this software that we should not have to jump through hoops doing your "recommended" tips.  This is not a Chrome issue but an Articulate issue.  It's very frustrating and when our license is up for renewal we will be looking at other options as this is too big of a feature to go unresolved.  We use screenshots 50% of the time in our lessons and I can't keep wasting this much time trying to research these help articles and jumping through all of these hoops.  The ability to make this work should not fall back on the user but rather the software company.

 

Alan Wells

I am approaching our renewal next month. I have this issue and it is disturbing that the images (screen captures illustrating our system) are VERY clear and precise in the individual screen building arena - yet the minute I select "Preview" - Blurry! So it is NOT an importing issue from PowerPoint slides into Articulate = that Works.. It is within moving from creating to publishing or previewing that the degradation happens. My test users that I use prior to publishing our training are actually squinting. Not a good thing at all. I have downloaded all the updates and no change.

As mentioned, I am approaching renewal time - - Please find and send out a fix ASAP - I really don't want to go searching for another authoring tool just now.

Dave Cox

I just did some testing of my own after I noticed this issue. I tried adding both .png and .jpg images to a slide and published the file. When I publish, the image quality takes a significant drop in resolution quality which shows up not only in Chrome, but in IE and Edge.

I first thought that the resolution of the images were getting changed when Storyline published. So I check the published images and compared them with my original images. The images are about the same quality. So doing some additional testing with the published Storyline file,

I discovered that the images in the browser display at about 200% in size from my original image, and they are blurry. Now here is the interesting part. The zoom controls on my mouse, and the Ctrl- and Ctrl= zoom shortcuts are also disabled. But I can zoom the browser by selecting the zoom controls from the menu. When I set the browser's zoom to 200%, the Storyline player reduces in size, and the images display at about the same size as my original images, and look just as sharp as my original image. The interesting thing is, all of the text around the player gets biggers, while the player is getting smaller.

It appears to me, that the player always try's to play at 200%, causing the resulting output to appear blurry.

The issue is, the images in the Storyline presentation are too blurry. 

Robin Weggeman

I did some testing after reading a lot of these threads.

My fix fixes most cases of this issue with the screen recorder.

SOLUTION!! WORKAROUND! WORTH TO TRY

The blurry pictures are only blurry when you turn off the animation.
When I make an animation of minimal 8 frames, the images are supersharp.
unluckily this didn't work for all of the slides, some remain blurry no matter the animation.
Still, 95% of the slides is fixed for now.
Im not super happy with my fix, I've got over 250 slides that need to be re-timed with the screen fine tuner.

 

SAURAV KUMAR

Recently, I also get the same issue and I tried a lot to fix it. Only solution I find out is given as follows in few steps:

1. Do not crop or scale your image in Articulate Storyline.

2. If you want to resize the image. I better suggest you to use Adobe Photoshop for cropping and scaling.

3. Export the image from Photoshop as JPEG or PNG format and Import the image in Articulate Storyline. 

4. I repeat.. please do not scale or crop in Articulate Storyline. (if you are facing above issue.)

Thanks & Regards

Saurav

Joanna Marsden

Hi Lauren,

I appreciate your quick response and sharing the tips across on how to get this resolved however i had no luck in spite of referring to the article. Can you let me know a precise and alternate way out which could be put into best practice so that the resolution piece is fixed. In case i could have a demo that would very much appreciated.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Joanna,

I took a look at your file and wanted to explain a bit more specific to your file. 

For example, your screen recording titled 'Desktop 9/16/19 4:19 pm' has a resolution of 1884x924. Your story size for Storyline is set to 720x540, which causes the content to scale.

I'd recommend opening a new project file, adjusting the Slide Size to accommodate the screen recording:

To reuse a screencast from your Storyline project, import at least one of the step-by-step slides from the original project into your new project. This makes the entire screen recording available in the new project, and you can reuse it as often as you like—either as a video on a single slide or as step-by-step slides.

Cheryl Dunleavy

Hi, I have similar issues using Storyline 2. In SL and when I preview everything looks good, however when I publish out the text and images seem blurry no mater what player settings I use. I attach 2 sample files - thanks for any help and guidance.

Lauren Connelly

Hi Cheryl!

Thank you for attaching your sample files! I understand what you're pointing out. This could be an issue stemming from the image size. If images are too small or too big, the image quality is affected. 

Also, I noticed the images in Four Motivations are named rectangle. Can you import the images as jpg? This could help ensure the quality isn't compromised.

Pamela Taylor

I agree.  This has been a known problem for years...with promises of resolution for years. 

Our team has commented that the images seem even more degraded now than they did a couple years ago...and I disagree that the issue is specific to Chrome or the browser version. We test on different browsers, different versions, and the issue persists. 

The "fix" should be on Articulate.  We have thousands and thousands of images, sized properly, etc.  It is untenable that we should have to evaluate and manipulate every image, that on other formats, is already a properly formatted and clear image. 

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for reaching out and letting us know that you're seeing some blurriness with your images in Storyline 360 as well.

We have some recommendations for high-quality images in your projects, which you can find here.

'Just right' would be an image that does not have to be scaled up or down to fit your Storyline project.

  • What size is your image?
  • What is your story size?

With your permission, I'd like to take a look at your project file to investigate what's happening. You can share it publicly here, or send it to me privately by uploading it here. I'll delete it when I'm done troubleshooting.