Chrome Webstore promotional images blurred on zooming

[Gaurang Tandon]

Hi,

I noticed a peculiar issue in the store. Our source promo images are clean and they have the recommended dimensions. But when they are uploaded to the store and rendered on the page, they are significantly pixelated as soon as we zoom in (even at 110%).

Couple of examples from popular extensions:

1. Google keep - notice the address bar URL

2. Honey - any smaller text

3. Grammarly - any text

If the pixelation isn't obvious, try looking at the smaller non-heading text in specific promo tiles. It's not just the text, everything is pixelated, but the text is where the pixelation is most visible to human eye.

I did not find any related thread on this in this group. There's an old StackOverflow thread mentioning the same issue. I'm curious why this is not being discussed more, it makes the promo images look much worse to the user! This issue especially affects users with larger screens because they will generally be zoomed in at least 125%, at which point the pixelation is significant.

[hrg...@gmail.com]

The Web Store scales down the images to 640x400 when you submit them, so it's expected that enlarging a low resolution image results in blurriness or pixelation.

There's nothing we can do about it. It's just the way the CWS works.

[Uladzimir Yankovich]

О! This is a great topic. Guys, let's talk about it.

In fact, here are the image requirements of the Chrome Store:
Global screenshots.
Up to a maximum of 5
1280x800 or 640x400
JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha)
At least one is required

So far, so good. Normal images for normal screens, x2 for retina screens. But something went wrong, and Chrome Store just compresses all images to 640x400. And let's be honest, it looks terrible in 2022.

Given the availability and speed of the internet, it would be better if all users got 1280x800.

Simeon, Chrome Store team, let's do it 💪🙏

[Jackie Han]

In 2022, the web store should support image assets for hidpi screen (retina display)!

For example, if screenshots's aspect ratio is 1.6, it should accept 640x400,1280x800, 1920x1200, 2560x1600 screenshots.

It's not for the developer experience, it's for the end user experience.

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[Jackie Han]

I report an issue on https://github.com/w3c/webextensions/issues/240