Full image resolution in Safari

Question

Level 1

10 points

Full image resolution in Safari

Safari doesn't render images at their full resolution, so even zooming won't get you a 1:1 pixel mapping. It helps to "Save" an image to the picture roll and view it in the Photos app, but that's so much work.

Isn't there a way to view only the image, like desktop Safari can? I just want to read a web comic, nothing huge.

iPad 1, iOS 4

Posted on Apr 10, 2011 1:35 AM

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Answer 1

HereIsTom

Level 4

1,496 points

Apr 11, 2011 1:46 AM in response to lachla

This is the image you linked to; http://www.lackadaisycats.com/comic/1299970539.jpg

And this is the previous image; http://www.lackadaisycats.com/comic/1299967561.jpg

So the previous image has a higher resolution and that's why you don't get the first imaga in big screen 😉

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Answer 2

Apr 11, 2011 2:52 AM in response to lachla

lachla wrote:
It's a widely reported issue, I just can't find a solution.

A widely reported issue? Never heard of this issue before...

The image is 742x1800... The web designer needs to make the image bigger. This is not a fault in Safari rendering the image.

http://www.lackadaisycats.com/comic/1299970539.jpg

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Answer 3

Apr 11, 2011 7:33 AM in response to lachla

No, I know exactly what is going on here. Back in december I was away on vacation and was using my iPad to copy all the raw images from my camera SD cards over to a ftp at home. I after the first few attempts I was noticing I was "uploading" a 5kX3k image in resolution, but mobile safari would only have a greatly reduced image uploaded. Luckily I was able to check on a laptop and saw that all my EXIF data was being preserved with the original image resolution. What I believe is happening is that the Mobile Safari in iOS devices have a scaling function on images so that it will preserve some of the image quality without having to wait for long periods of time to load an image. Your images are still the same size as the original upload, it is optimizing the image for viewing because you should not need a 1:1 pixel representation of LARGE images in mobile safari, if you do then you should be using a different device.

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Answer 4

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 11, 2011 7:44 AM in response to a Mac user

So we finally arrived where I started. "Different device" isn't a solution, the iPad is perfectly capable to display large images, as long as it isn't inside a webpage. Now how do I get Safari to only load the image, as I can on the desktop by right clicking on it? Or at least copy the URL?

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Answer 5

Apr 11, 2011 7:55 AM in response to lachla

I believe the image scaling is forced through the webkit engine. If you were to use a downloader app and then third party application for viewing, you might be able to download the image from the URL and then view it full sized. The Photos app will create optimized copies of images you save as well as the original size. When you sync the device to a computer you can then get the original full sized images off the iPad.

Could you give slightly more detail as to what you are doing that requires these large images? We might be able to point you to an app or process for achieving your goal better. On a mobile device, it is hard to show large scale images fluidly due to the lacking hardware that most have.

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Answer 6

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 11, 2011 8:47 AM in response to lachla

iCab doesn't have a free version, Opera is iPhone only. I tried three other browsers to no avail.

I found out that if you copy an image, Safari also places its URL on the pasteboard. Entering it in the URL field will get rid of the surrounding page, but still doesn't render at full size.

What does work is downloading that URL with GoodReader!

My original solution of saving the image does place the original file in the picture role, but the Photos app doesn't render at full size, either. However the threshold is higher than with Safari.

Importing from the picture roll into GoodReader also works, but is not recommended as it doesn't copy the file but the pixels, and re-saves them as JPEG. This degrades quality and increases size.

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Answer 7

Jun 12, 2011 5:59 AM in response to lachla

I was originally look for a way to get MSafari to snap images to 1:1 when viewing, I can't find the gesture for it and don't want to wing it by pinching.

But it looks like MSafari has other problems as well.

I see what you are saying and this is indeed disappointing.

Your image is only 600+KB, my iPhone 4 has 512 MB of RAM (more than computers of yesteryear), it's quite silly that it can't display the full res of the image and resorts to shrinking the image by 4x.

I also noticed that when you "save image", the image in Camera Roll is NOT the same as the one on the web page, it's slightly large (probably recompressed).

It seems the only way to save the image "as it is" bit for bit identical** is to use Good Reader's download protocol (where you add a 'g' to the "http://..." to get "ghttp://..."), yes it appears you need to use a 3rd party program to do something as simple as saving an image correctly ... -_-

** I compared the MD5s of the images saved from Chrome(Mac OS X), Good Reader, import from Camera Roll.

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Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,076 points

Apr 11, 2011 8:14 AM in response to a Mac user

iCab does use webkit, but may still do some things differently. It and Opera are probably most likely to differ most from Safari I think. GoodReader may also be an option in some cases.

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Answer 9

HereIsTom

Level 4

1,496 points

Apr 10, 2011 4:42 AM in response to lachla

Can you give an example?

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Answer 10

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 10, 2011 5:09 AM in response to HereIsTom

It's a widely reported issue, I just can't find a solution.

Try reading the bubbles on http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/comic.php?comicid=104

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Answer 11

HereIsTom

Level 4

1,496 points

Apr 10, 2011 6:56 AM in response to lachla

That one image is small, if choose previous then it its full screen 😉

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Answer 12

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 10, 2011 7:03 AM in response to HereIsTom

No, the image is large, hence the problem, which isn't full screen but zoom. The previous strip is only half as many pixels high. Thanks for trying to help, but you aren't.

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Answer 13

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 11, 2011 2:02 AM in response to HereIsTom

Again, please don't reply if you don't understand the question.

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Answer 14

HereIsTom

Level 4

1,496 points

Apr 11, 2011 2:17 AM in response to lachla

Then you need to explain better, because nobody understand your question!

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Answer 15

lachla Author

Level 1

10 points

Apr 11, 2011 3:02 AM in response to David M Brewer

I'm getting 1000*2423 for your link! Tried changing the user agent to iPad, no change. And as I said, it works if I "Save" in Mobile Safari. Maybe your ISP resizes images on the fly?

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