Opera Text & Image Scaling, Bypass Scaling for Images

Iseria97

Iseria97

Is there a way to prevent Opera from upscaling images? It makes them look horrible and blurry. I don't know what scaling algorithm is being used but it looks like bilinear interpolation. I just want images to be able to bypass any zoom or upscaling. When Windows scaling is set to above 100%(which is necessary if you have a small, high resolution screen). Disabling windows scaling makes text far too small to read so that's not an option. I'm fine with scaling on everything except for images.

Tried Method 1:
Removing windows scaling specifically in Opera using "--alt-high-dpi-setting=96 /high-dpi-support=1 /force-device-scale-factor=1" which fixes the issue with images but it makes text too small. To try and fix the text issue in this case I increased the minimum font size but it's causing text overlap and completely missing text in some cases. Opera UI also becomes too small in this case though using "bigger tiles" on the start page made that better at least.

Increasing "Zoom" would be fine here if it simply did not upscale the images as well and just left them at their original or fit-downscaled resolution.

Tried Method 2:
Left windows scaling in the application alone, went into Opera settings and set "Page zoom" to 80% since windows scaling is set to 125%. (100% in Opera becomes equivalent to 125% so making page zoom 80% here nullifies that exactly.(100/125=4/5 , 80%/100% = 4/5) In this state Opera UI looks fine, images looks fine but text on webpages is unreadably small. And again increasing min size causes same issues as stated in method 1.

This seems like it could be resolved if element CSS could organically increase it's size to fit the new text size, where necessary. I'm fine with elements being pushed out of place(like onto a new row) as long as they're still legible, just not overlapping or disappearing behind other elements.

Issues also shown in side by side screenshot.(uploaded on imgur due to file size limit)
https://imgur.com/O7ncDdD
Beauty of the image is lost in the upscaling. Left looks blurry but right looks nice and sharp(but not pixelated) and retains it's gleam.

For reference the Laptop screen I'm using is 15inch, 1080p 16:9.(running windows 11 and Opera version 93.0.4585.37) Neither method I have tried has been sufficient and I can't seem to find a solution by searching the web. I've tried to explain this issue as best I can. Can someone please help me resolve this? How do I get Opera to just not upscale any images? Downscaling to fit smaller elements/screen is fine, just never upscaling.

donq

donq @Iseria97

@iseria97 Do Chrome and/or Edge behave differently? If not, then this is chromium renderer problem (and most likely will never be fixed).

(I really hate that kind of scaling, but so far I have not found any solution besides setting Opera to use 96dpi or what exact command line options there are nowadays. I sometimes browse in local archive pages - scans and photos of old documents; not being able to see pixel-perfect images is big downside of "high dpi compatible" scaling.)

Iseria97

Iseria97 @donq

@donq said in Opera Text & Image Scaling, Bypass Scaling for Images:

@iseria97 Do Chrome and/or Edge behave differently?

Hi, I appreciate the reply. The issue is indeed present in Chrome & Edge as well. Also Firefox which(assuming I'm remembering correctly) isn't chromium based. It's a widespread & really infuriating problem. I'm surprised there has been no discussion on it yet.(at least as far as I'm aware) I hope this thread can find some solutions or at least draw attention to it. I don't want to have to save images to my computer every time I need to view them properly,

Here is a screenshot I took with Paint, Photos and Chrome side by side to illustrate the issue. Paint and Photos will display the actual size, pixel for pixel, regardless of windows system scaling at "100%" whilst chrome and Opera will not.
https://imgur.com/a/ptLirjY

If not, then this is chromium renderer problem (and most likely will never be fixed).

Why not? I'm not an expert programmer but how hard can it really be to just tell the browser to ignore images and upscale everything else? Microsoft have managed to do it for Paint and Photos on Windows 11 so it can be done. Just a tick box for this in Opera settings would be a nice feature.

donq

donq @Iseria97

@iseria97 said in Opera Text & Image Scaling, Bypass Scaling for Images:

I'm surprised there has been no discussion on it yet.(at least as far as I'm aware)

Because (by my count) you are only the second user (besides me) who seems interested in seeing pixel-perfect images.

If not, then this is chromium renderer problem (and most likely will never be fixed).

Why not?

No one is interested. All this 'high-dpi scaling' appeared in browsers when 4K and similar monitors went mainstream. To allow single codebase, they (browser makers) applied same algorithm for all scaling - take original image, rescale it according to dpi and and then rescale it by user zoom factor. (This also means, that 125% dpi and 80% zoom include two rescalings ) 99% of users can't even tell the difference.

I'm not an expert programmer but how hard can it really be to just tell the browser to ignore images and upscale everything else?

Very hard - and for example on 4K screens with typical dpi scaling of 200% this makes webpages design go totally haywire.

Microsoft have managed to do it for Paint and Photos on Windows 11 so it can be done. Just a tick box for this in Opera settings would be a nice feature.

Paint and photos (and many more apps) are image viewers, not webpage renderers.