How to keep pixels perfect? Practical PS Experience Sharing

[Jing Wei shared: How to keep pixels perfect ?] Most people are exhausted to ensure that the color, texture, and position of each pixel are displayed accurately. With Caution, some common operations such as moving, rotating, and pasting will render your work hard. However, if you can make small changes to your workflow, you can always maintain the high-quality work in the project.

Perfect pixel Rotation

If you are not careful enough, rotating the layers in Photoshop will obviously damage the pixels and blur them.

After a layer is precisely rotated 90 degrees or 270 degrees using a free transform tool (or other tool), the final display of the pixel will depend on the layer size. If the width and height of a layer are even numbers, you will be spared. If the width and height of the layer are odd, no problem occurs. However, if the layer width is an odd number, the height is an even number, or the width is an even number, and the height is an odd number, you will see the following scenario:

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In this example, the size of the original layer is 20x9 pixels: an even number x an odd number. Although bitmap and vector layers have different effects after rotation, both become unavailable. This is because the center of the layer rotation does not fall on a pixel boundary.

One solution

When the width and height of a layer are odd x even or even X odd, a problem occurs after rotation. Therefore, we need some way to ensure that the width and height of the layer are even X even or odd x odd. Perhaps the solution you come up with is to add a square bitmap mask or more pixels to the layer to be rotated. In addition, you can also solve this problem by drawing a square on another layer and rotating it with the original layer at the same time.

All in all, as long as the width and height of the layer are even numbers × even numbers or odd numbers × odd numbers.

A simpler method

When using the free transform tool, move the center of the rotation to the upper left corner (or any other top corner) to ensure that it falls on the border of a certain pixel, this ensures that the results after each rotation are perfect. To do this, you need to select the free conversion tool and then click any top angle on the reference point setting button to rotate. This is the simplest and most effective method so far.

Bitmap masks and vector masks are also affected by this problem, so be careful when using them. But in fact, it only affects those layers that rotate by "free transform" or "transform" in the editing menu. This problem does not occur if image → image rotation is used to rotate the entire canvas.

To make my work easier, I have made some Photoshop actions and workflows for you.

Pixel-perfect vector Paste

If you draw a pixel-aligned source image in illustrator and paste it into Photoshop as a shape layer, you may have noticed that the results are not only as bad as expected (an absolutely clear image), but also terrible. Here we will teach you how to solve this problem.

The source image is constructed perfectly in illustrator and the pixels are aligned with the grid. The size is exactly the size we want to use in Photoshop.

The following figure shows the effect of pasting the same path to Photoshop several times. Obviously, only the image on the top left is clear. the pixels of other images are offset by half pixels either along the X axis or along the Y axis or both directions.

What went wrong?

Photoshop can be pasted in two ways. If you draw a selection area in advance, the center of the clipboard will be aligned with the center of the selection after the content is pasted. If no selection area is drawn, the paste will align with the center of the view. The zooming degree of the document and the position where the view is located will affect the final effect.

One solution

In this example, the source image is 32 pixels in width and 12 pixels in height. Draw a 32 × 12 pixel rectangular selection area in Photoshop and paste it to precisely place the strong rows of pixels where they are needed and align the grid. This method has been tried and tested.

A simpler method

In fact, the rectangle selection area does not need to be the same as the size of the source image. In this example, a selection area of 2x2 pixels is equally valid, because the center of the rectangle selection with the same width and height as the even width and the center of the clipboard content with the same width and height will precisely fall on the boundary of a certain pixel, which is exactly what we want. If the width and height of the source image are the same as the odd values, a rectangle selection area with 1x1 pixel can be used.

If you have no time to consider the size of the source image to be pasted, draw a rectangle selection area of the proper size, for example, draw a selection area of 2x2 pixels and paste it. If the image is blurred only along the X axis, change the selection area to 1 × 2 pixels and paste the image. If only the Blur occurs along the Y axis, change the selection area to 2 × 1 pixel and paste it. If blur occurs along the X and Y axes, change the selection area to 1 × 1 pixel and paste it.

This may sound complicated, but it is very quick in practice; you only need to paste it twice at most to get a clear and sharp vector path from illustrator.

Smart Object

After an element is converted into a smart object, the above problem does not occur (at least not in Photoshop cs5 ). However, I like to use shape layers because they allow more control and editing and better anti-aliasing functions.

Pixel-perfect vector fine-tuning

When you fine-tune the anchor point, Photoshop will show some strange behavior, and it will be related to the degree of enlargement of the view. When you scale to 100%, you can use the Direct selection tool for fine-tuning so that your vector points can move exactly one pixel. When you zoom in to 200%, the fine-tuning will make the vector point move half a pixel. Move 300% pixels when you zoom in to 1/3.

Such behavior seems purposeful, but it is not what I often want. In most cases, I need to fine-tune the pixels by adding integers. Below we will teach you how to implement it without narrowing down the window to 100%.
Open your document, and then create a second window through window → arrangement → ×× new window. You can adjust the size and position of the new window.

Edit in the new window as usual and zoom in the view at will. Now, you can press Ctrl + 'to switch to the window where the view is scaled to 100%, select the tool directly, and press Ctrl +' to switch back for fine-tuning. Because the image in the other window is reduced to 100%, fine-tuning in the new window will only move the selected vector point to one pixel.

Note that if you press and hold the Shift key and use the Direct selection tool for fine tuning, the anchor will move in 10 pixels, no matter how much your view is enlarged. In most cases, you can drag the anchor with the mouse to align the pixels to the grid, but this is not always the case.

Control your pixels

Using the correct techniques makes accurate pixel placement easy and easy. Remember, you are the controller. You are the one who makes pixel numbers neatly listed. The rejection pixel is not perfect.
Want to know more special Photoshop skills or features? Follow the typical Photoshop tutorial!

How to keep pixels perfect? Practical PS Experience Sharing