AuthorTopic: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question  (Read 37778 times)

Offline Helm

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #30 on: May 19, 2009, 12:04:10 pm
So what has happened on this front? Is there a non-apparent solution to the problem I haven't understood from reading the bug report? Can someone tech-savvy clue us plebs in on how to fix this now if it's fixable?

Offline Colonel Mustard

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #31 on: May 19, 2009, 01:05:38 pm
Edit: I downloaded Firefox 3.5 beta 4, and it seems this is only in later builds as of now. I assume they'll add it for the final 3.5 build. If someone can confirm which build it works with and where to get it, please post.

Edit 2: I downloaded the latest build from http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/, 3.6a1pre, and with that build the solution mentioned below works. Note however that it's (afaik) not a stable build, and odd behaviour and crashes might occur when using a non stable build.

Well, from what I gathered in that bug report thread, they added a way of disabling it for certain images by using the css attribute image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges;

What to do with it as a website owner/admin:
- Enable the css attribute for images that aren't supposed to be blurred

What to do with it as a user:
- Firefox has a settings file that controls css content, userContent.css, if you add the image-rendering tag in there it will always be off by default, so all images will be rendered without filtering unless a website disables it.

Where can I find userContent.css?
Windows: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<random string>\chrome\
Mac OSX: home\Library\Application Support\Firefox\Profiles\<profilename>\<randomstring>.default\chrome\
Linux: ~/.mozilla/<linux login name>/<random string>.slt/

Find the file, open it up for editing, add this line at the bottom:
Quote
img { image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; }

If you haven't edited it before, there's a chance there's only a file called "userContent-example.css" there, if so, open it upp, add the line at the bottom, and resave it as userContent.css
« Last Edit: May 19, 2009, 01:20:25 pm by Colonel Mustard »

Offline Helm

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #32 on: May 19, 2009, 01:23:14 pm
That's Minefield though, isn't it? The new browser by Mozilla. It won't natively install over the firefox I have now so I'll have to migrate bookmarks and passwords, right?

In that case I might as well wait for Minefield to go stable and switch once and for all then.

Offline Colonel Mustard

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #33 on: May 19, 2009, 01:34:42 pm
Hmm, I just assumed Minefield was some sort of build name. I downloaded the zipped version, extracted and ran it. It used my existing firefox bookmarks and information, and it used the userContent.css information just the same as Firefox.

Edit: Did a quick wikipedia, and "Minefield, the branding used for trunk builds of Mozilla Firefox" came up. So I believe it's Firefox, it just can't be branded Firefox until it's stable or final.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2009, 01:38:43 pm by Colonel Mustard »

Offline Arne

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #34 on: May 19, 2009, 01:56:37 pm
I made a test page using this page as a reference. Note that  the top lest corner will be crisp regardless, because the image is cropped there. The right side has some air and is thus blurry.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2009, 01:59:56 pm by Arne »

Offline Don risotto

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #35 on: June 11, 2009, 02:37:44 pm
GAH!!! Just reading that bug report makes me want to tear my eyes out.

The other thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned in there is that the bilinear filtering method that cairo uses is wildly inappropriate even in a lot of downscaling operations. It blurs the hell out of images. This is conjecture but I suspect that a highly "optimised" algorythm may be in effect. After so much time, and then this. I think  I'm switching to something else permanently.

Offline Gil

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #36 on: June 11, 2009, 07:55:53 pm
You might want to get off the high horse there Don Risotto.

I'm sure the Firefox people just put it in because 99% of the people WILL perceive it as being better looking this way.

Offline ndchristie

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #37 on: June 11, 2009, 09:46:39 pm
I have been happily using FF2 since downgrading.  it goes right over FF3 and erases any memory of the product.  I'm sure some things won't work as well, but hey, I like my pixels.

Still waiting for an effective way to address the problem without staying in the "stone-age" of 2007.
A mistake is a mistake.
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The same mistake three or more times is a motif.

Offline Don risotto

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #38 on: June 14, 2009, 09:27:26 am
You might want to get off the high horse there Don Risotto.

I'm sure the Firefox people just put it in because 99% of the people WILL perceive it as being better looking this way.

not a high horse nothin. I just don't like choice being taken away from me. How exactly is it detrimental to have a simple switch in about:config?

The seemingly complete denial from devs as to there being an issue or even a question of user choice frustrates me. Not simply for aesthetic reasons either. I'm trying to build a super low spec pc and for some idiot reason I'm using windows XP? well firefox just stopped being my browser of choice.

edit: and in case I didn't make it clear, yes I think that bilinear filtering should be on by default. I just really don't like not being able to turn it off. hell if we're going that far, why not enable lancsoz filtering for those with high specced pc's? it would sure look pretty.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2009, 09:31:12 am by Don risotto »

Offline Gil

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Re: Firefox 3 blurring pixel art question

Reply #39 on: June 14, 2009, 11:52:57 am
My point is that 99% of the firefox users don't even know or see the difference. It just looks prettier now to them. Why would Firefox be a bad browser for not immediately catering for less than 1% of their user base? Firefox was never meant to be run in a low level environment anyway, so that point is moot too. If you're running FF in a low-level environment, you're going to have much more problems with the high RAM use than the tiny bit of interpolating going on.

Besides, the bug is propagating, a fix has been made, it's gone into the nightlies and it's going to be be in one of the future releases. What more CAN they do?