Zoom Region Pixelation
Nov 21, 2012
Is there a way to zoom an image without the zoomed in view being pixelated? For example, I insert a large high resolution image of an office floor layout showing different offices, desks, chairs for the whole floor of a building. The image itself is much larger than SL stage so it is automatically shrunk to fit (which is OK because I want to see the whole floor layout). I then zoom in on a specific office but SL seems to be using the reduced size of the original PNG so when the zoom happens the image pixelates. The original image has enough image detail to to have the region zoomed to full screen and still be at least 72dpi. I want the zoomed in image to be crystal clear.
Anybody know a way around this?
32 Replies
Have found that png's pixelate the most, try a jpg they seem to respond better
Make sure there's an image somewhere in your story (even on the same slide off of the stage) that is scaled to full size. That way Storyline will include the full-tilt size on export and not scale down your rescaled version.
Oh, and make sure it's copied and pasted
If you re-import another image, it'll tag it as a separate object and not smartly handle the resize link.
Interesting, even importing a separate instance is working well for me. Even if the image is on another slide at full scale it's still crisp and 1:1 nice.
Hi Steve. Didn't know about having a full sized copy offscreen would work. Going to try that now...
Just so I understand... I should insert a full size image, drag it off the stage and make sure it is scaled to 100%. Then I should copy and paste that image and resize it to fit the stage. Then when I zoon on a small section of that resized image on the stage it will zoom using the full sized image that is off screen?
Yep. That's the way it's working for me. For example if your image is 2000 x 2000 pixels, scale it 100% off stage, then scale down a copy to fit your stage (760x540). Now when you zoom region, it'll use the fully scaled image and not super pixelate (within the limits of your fully scaled image).
Just tried it and I believe you've got it! I'm going to experiment a bit more but I think I'm getting the result you describe.
Thanks! I'll be back after a few more experiments with a report....
Does SL have a pixel limit for imported images? I have an image of roughly 5000 X 8000 and it seems to be limiting it to around 1300 X 2100. Is that normal?
Great question. I'm not aware of a limit but I haven't imported super-mondo images.
there is a limit, storyline crashes sometimes when I go for 5000x5000 images, Magnus had a lot to say about that
Phil, that's what I'm starting to see. Getting memory warnings and warning that SL might close (though it hasn't). Still doing some testing here.
Tried to import an image 14000 pixels wide x 5000 pixels high. Imported it but resized to a lot lower resolution.
Hey, Brett -
I know this is probably a pain but you might be able to get around the limit by slicing your image up to smaller dimensions (?) Puzzle-solve it back together and the user won't know the difference. This will likely still eat up as much memory as a single big image.
Interesting...
Yeah, it seems to be scaling them on import to mitigate memory torture and crash.
Thats a good solution thanks Steve
That is a good solution though might make me pull out what's left of my hair trying to reassemble the puzzle...
Seems like there is a threshold somewhere regarding the pixel size.
R1C1, R1C2, R1C3
R2C1, R2C2, R2C3
Fireworks slicing should add similar naming / tagging. Loves me some Fireworks.
Very helpful discussion here, gentlemen, thanks very much. I'm going to do some searching and see what I can find out about image size thresholds.
I'm having the same problem with pixelization of the image upon zooming. Using a .jpg didn't help. I also tried the copying & pasting trick but it didn't make a difference. Are there any other suggestions?
Hi Mary,
You'll want to follow these best practices for using images in Storyline 2. Are you working with a high-quality image that looks clear without the zoom region?
Thank you, Alyssa. Yes, it's over 6MB. I had to shrink it a bit to fit on the stage. When I increase the stage size, the image is still clear but is blurry when using the zoom region. I can try the other 2 best practices when I'm ready to publish.
Great, thank you! Keep me posted on how it turns out.
I just wanted to add that the suggest 'best practice' does not seem to work. The linked articles [SL2 | SL360] suggest either WMF or EMF. I've attached a sample of both, neither seem to maintain anything closely resembling vector.
I turned to this, because the original PNG image was getting artifacting (pixelation); Although, this actually was better than the 'best practices' approach.
Further, the suggestion to use jpg/jpeg because it's better than .png doesn't seem to hold true (well, not anymore -- perhaps it did, 5 years ago).
If Steve's "hack" / workaround ever worked - they've changed something in the underlying code in the past 5 years, because this doesn't work either.
Does anybody have any thoughts / work-around on this issue?
Thanks! :)