Disable high DPI image scaling in Chrome for images only?

porina · December 6, 2024

As subject. I have Chrome. At some point screenshots started to get blurry. Maybe I only noticed recently since moving to a 4k display where I need to use scaling. Before I was at 100%.

I think it is because Chrome is detecting the scaling factor in Windows and applying it to images. It really sucks. I want the scaling for text, but not for images. Currently playing about with random things I found like compatibility setting in Windows without luck.

Unless it isn't Chrome doing it. Can websites probe that and set the scale themselves?

Mark Kaine · December 7, 2024

i think it's important to know what type of images... resolution, *all* images, even if you right click -> open in new tab? etc...

im having a hard time understanding the problem ig, like "sometimes" images gonna be blurry when not fully loaded etc ... additionally i think chrome is becoming increasingly buggy recently... for example "thumbnails" or rather "previews" on Nexus are constantly blurry for me recently... but if i click on them they load fully and normally.

Doesn't really happen on other sites though specifically, so it might just be the Nexus cdn...

Mark Kaine · December 7, 2024

Also what "image scaling" are we talking, 1 2 or 3 or all of them?

porina · December 7, 2024

Here's a photo to show the problem. On the left I have a screenshot open in an image editing program. It is showing pixels 1:1. This is expected behaviour. To the right is Edge, which does the same thing as Chrome, showing it scaled up. No user zoom is applied in the browser. I'm using 150% on my system. If I turn it to 100%, images looks right, but everything else is microscopic. So like I said, it looks like Edge/Chrome are taking the system scaling factor and applying it to shown images which I don't want.

On your 1, 2, 3 question, 3 takes me to 1. I tried fiddling with the settings in there with no improvement. I actually had to do similar for the image editing program earlier, but there it did work. I can't find 2. I'm on Win11 23H2.

Mark Kaine · December 7, 2024

2 hours ago, porina said:

If I turn it to 100%, images looks right, but everything else is microscopic.

oh... so its that setting... (150% scale) that's interesting because as i said since recently i get these weird pixelated thumbnail/previews and i also have set it to 150% scale (as windows looks ridiculously small at 100% on a 1440P monitor)

2 hours ago, porina said:

On your 1, 2, 3 question, 3 takes me to 1. I tried fiddling with the settings in there with no improvement. I actually had to do similar for the image editing program earlier, but there it did work. I can't find 2. I'm on Win11 23H2.

oh i see... im on win10 22H2... but i have the distinctive feeling something is messed up with it *since recently* i actually thought it may have stealth updated, but yeah, nah, still same version. Chrome did update recently though, so i think it may have been that. im also about to try a new dp cable because i think my old one might be faulty - I've also lost 10bit color settings for some reason... no idea how that's possible... (its either the cable or some driver has automatically updated i guess)

I'll let you know when i find *anything* out!

ps: it doesn't seem to be nvidia drivers as i did update those, it only got worse so now im back on an older version but no change still same as before (10bit color missing etc)