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Preview blurry images?

I have a few photos open in Preview, and they have a slight blur to them. Then I open the same files in photoshop, and they are crisp.

Anyone else notice this?

And I am a professional photographer, so no, the images are not out of focus 🙂

Quad 8-Core 3.0, Mac OS X (10.5), MacBook pro, iMac

Posted on Oct 27, 2007 9:16 PM

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16 replies

Nov 2, 2007 7:21 AM in response to KCunningham

No only is scanned in text almost entirely unreadable in preview, but the "copy and paste" ability has seemingly gone away.

I used to scan in Latin text for the class that I teach, and often copy and paste selections in Pages documents as I needed them. Now the only way to do this is to do a screen grab, then copy and paste that screen grab in.... and the result is a blurry mess.

Does anyone know if it is possible to download the old version of preview from somewhere? This has really become a huge problem for me.

Nov 17, 2007 4:22 PM in response to KCunningham

I am experiencing the same problems with Preview. Not only do the pdfs appear blurry, but the redraw is maddeningly slow during scroll or page jumping.

Agreed, Preview from 10.4 was much smoother. Trying to run it after the 10.5.1 update results in the "cannot use the application..." error message. As per other threads, I've tried moving the old app around and repairing permissions. No change.

I know this isn't a top priority, but it would be nice to have Preview on the working side.

😟 Please Apple? We'd like to be able to read documents without resorting to another pdf viewer.

Nov 18, 2007 4:38 AM in response to Maclarean

Yep, I noticed this straight away too. Strange considering Preview is the primary way of viewing images on a computer system designed for creative/arty people.

I've downloaded the press release screenshot for the new Final Cut Express 4, which is a 2400 x 1621 image. If I open it in Preview and Zoom To Fit, all the text looks as if it has a slight vertical motion blur on it. However, as I zoom into the image, I can see that there is a tremendous amount of detail and clarity in the image. It's clearly Previews fault as Photoshop would have no problem at all resampling this image but maintaining the clarity.

Also, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but if you click the + or - buttons in Preview 4.0 to zoom in or out of the image, it zooms and then JUMPS up as the scroll bars appear! This is rubbish. I want to zoom IN, not zoom in THEN shift up.

Nov 18, 2007 11:20 PM in response to KCunningham

Here's a trick to keep the version of Preview from 10.4 running after the 10.5.1 update. Works for me, but you're on your own with it:

use the 'show package contents' command to open the old version of preview and the new version of preview. Copy the 'info.plist' file from the new version of preview to the old version of preview.

Then 'compress' the new version of preview and delete the app to avoid confusion.

If none of this makes sense to you, you probably shouldn't do it. I'd suggest replacing the modified Preview with the 10.5.1 version prior to any system updates, in case Apple fixes this someday.

Nov 19, 2007 3:37 AM in response to KCunningham

Always one to try interesting little tricks, I tried this one. I discovered that it still wouldn't run. So I also copied the version.plist file and then it did indeed run. I also discovered that the "Open" dialog doesn't work--all files are greyed out and unselectable. However drag and drop works fine, as does double clicking a Preview file when the hacked Preview is running.

I renamed it to PreviewOld (I had copied it to the Desktop) and put it in the Applications folder, left the original Leopard version alone. If no version is running and I double-click a Preview file, the Leopard version opens. You can also run both versions simultaneously, which makes it very easy to see how the new version has lost crispness when you compare the same file open in both versions at the same time. With both versions running, when you double click a file, it opens in the Leopard version.
Francine

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Francine
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Preview blurry images?

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