Why can't I resize an image texture back up to the original size without losing quality?

I’m trying to get something straight about image resizing, because I’ve noticed that when I resize an image texture on my model, decide it’s too blurry, then scale it back up, the image stays low-res looking. Sorry if it’s a ridiculous question, but is resizing an image a permanent change? If I want the image quality of the original, do I have to re-import my .glb in order to get a new version of my image texture to appear in my project?

Imagine what is going on to the image when you resize it - it is going through filtering of some kind, cubic or otherwise. This is true for all image editors - they will remove pixels and then when increase, add pixels that will not look correct.

If you need to experiment on resizing, make a backup of the original textures first and then use copies to experiment with resizing. I have to do that with Photoshop as well in my own work.

edited spelling

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Resizing means be definition: having a different size. It’s something different when you scale the object because then still the same image is mapped onto the model.

You may have to elaborate this to get a more suited answer.

Yes.

Once you scale an image down (and save it), you cannot enlarge it back to it’s original quality. It’s not a blender thing, it’s a “how editing digital images works” thing.

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That would make sense if I was saving the images every time, but I forgot to mention that it seems to happen even when I don’t save over the original. Maybe I’m just seeing things, or it takes time to update how it looks? My understanding of these things is admittedly rudimentary. It’s helpful for me to know it’s an image thing in general, so thank you.

You might have to show your setup… in what context are you “resizing” with what operation/node your image… ??

I’m not sure there’s anything to show, but the context is that I’m downsizing some glb files by taking them into blender, resizing all image textures (they’re scans, so the textures are very high res). To optimize them, I’m making them all 1024 x 1024. For some, I decided the resolution was too low; so I resized up to, say 2048 x 2048 and noticed no change in the image quality. I did not save the files after downsizing, so I thought it strange that upsizing did not result in a clearer image. If that doesn’t make sense, let me know. Thanks

An that’s wrong… imagine to downsize to one pixel and then upsize this pixel…

So: downsize from the original.

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The guys above explained it very well, but let me add something on my behalf: just imagine you’re cooking yourself an omelet or something similar to that. Once you have cracked your egg(-s) and pour the yolk onto a skillet, and then you start to fry it - this action cannot be rolled back to its initial condition. It’s called “Denaturation”. Something close to this happens when you resize your image, no matter if you’re upscaling or downscaling it. So the best advice that has been previously mentioned here is to make a backup of your original sized image before you execute any manipulations with it.

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