Photos are sharper after zooming in and back out

[chris4565]

Hi,

I noticed something with the Photos app. When I view a photo, then double tap to zoom in and then double tap again to zoom out, the photo is sharper than it originally was before the zooming.

Do you notice the same behavior? Is this normal?

Thanks

 

[Nigel Goodman]

I would guess that the photo has not fully downloaded when you first look at it. Zooming in downloads the full version so it is sharper.

 

[chris4565]

I would guess that the photo has not fully downloaded when you first look at it. Zooming in downloads the full version so it is sharper.

Nope, they are all downloaded and the effect is even repeatable when I close the photo and reopen it. Then again, it's not as sharp as after zooming in and out. The sharpness difference is not huge but slightly noticeable.

 

[Feyl]

I'm having the same experience. This was not a thing before iOS 14.

 

[GreyOS]

I suspect even when photos are on the device, the photos app only loads the thumbnail version until you zoom in, to avoid excessive memory use maybe?

However I could not reproduce what you said about it being repeatable. After doing it once it was always the higher res one on subsequent viewing/zooming