Re: Confusion about Image I/O export?
Re: Confusion about Image I/O export?
- Subject: Re: Confusion about Image I/O export?
- From: Fritz Anderson <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 09:45:39 -0500
On Sep 2, 2013, at 8:35 AM, Graham Cox <email@hidden> wrote:
> On 02/09/2013, at 3:24 PM, Cody Garvin <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Finder lags in updating image sizes. Is it updating an image or creating a new one
>>
>> Please excuse mobile typos
>
>
> Creating a new one. It's not lagging, it always reports the pixel size, ignoring dpi and therefore actual size.
I think you are reporting a mere fact, not an anomaly. It's always been pixels and it's too late to change. The rest is TL;DR.
Finder has been reporting image dimensions for a long time. Before OS X? Certainly before image formats with resolution metadata were common. (As witness the fact that when I wrote that sentence, I was uncomfortable with the word "resolution," because the distinction between dimension [nobody blinks when Apple lists a product's screen resolution as 768x1024] vs pixel density [nobody sells a device's density unless they are very careful to explain what it is] is loose to this day.)
At the time, pixel count was not only a reasonable measure, it was the one users expected. I don't have data, but I'd think it's still the measure most users want most of the time. It's too late to change the measure now, at least not without providing both, and labeling them.
I'm sure reporting physical dimensions in localized units would be painful to implement (though Apple is good about enduring that kind of pain), and God help US/EU user teams. And, even "physical units" is fictional, because most renderers ignore whether an "inch" will be so when the user holds a ruler to the screen.
"Points," not "inches?" Apple explicitly disclaims any link between a Quartz "point" and the typographer's measure ― it's defined as what-used-to-be-a-pixel. A length of 72 "points" means different things in different contexts, and we can't assume Apple users in particular are interested in learning about disjoint definitions of the same word. (Some users with rigorous needs want rigorous measures. They're specialists who have learned to adjust, and their tools are specialized to help them.)
The distinction between points and pixels in Apple developer terminology is even more recent; I've been filing bugs against NDA documentation _about images_ that confuses the two.
Anyway, while the usage you hope for is understandable, so is Apple's choice not to change it.
― F
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