Version 2.0+ (that starts using ImageProcessing gem) increases image sharpness and increases file size

[feliperaul]

I know version 2.0.0 is almost one year old by now, but I only managed to migrate from 1.3.1 this weekend.

I expected no change in image quality and file size when upgrading from 1.3.1, but what I saw was a visible image degradation (due to excessive artificial sharpening) and increased file size after the migration.

I'm going to show 2 pictures as examples. I recommend opening Carrierwave's versions in new tabs so you can see the images in full size to notice the difference.

Original file (66kb):

Uploaded with Carrierwave 1.3.1 (66kb):

Uploaded with Carrierwave 2.0+ (72kb):

Now picture #2

Original file (386kb):

Uploaded with Carrierwave 1.3.1 (385kb):

Uploaded with Carrierwave 2.0+ (429kb):

In both cases, there's undeniable increase of sharpness, but I didn't ask for that (even if you regard Carrierwave's 2.0+ version as better-looking than 1.3's, it's undeniable that the 1.3.1 version is much closer to the original, as expected, since the only processing done on the uploader was a crop).

Also, Carrierwave 2.0+ increases file sizes from 9 to 20% when compared to version 1.3.1.

I know it's a huge change in the codebase and I understand the reasoning behind it, but I think this change in quality and in sharpness was a substancial regression when comparing 1.3.1 to 2.0.0+.

Im pinging @janko and @mshibuya since they worked on issue #2298 where this change was implemented.

[janko]

Thank you for the detailed issue report, I deeply apologize for breaking backwards compatibility. This issue has been brought up in janko/image_processing#67, but I got side-tracked and never merged it.

This is now merged and released in ImageProcessing 1.11.0, which doesn't sharpen by default anymore.

CarrierWave could either require version ~> 1.11 from now on, or we can rely on people that are upgrading to automatically install the latest ImageProcessing gem.

[feliperaul]

@janko Thanks for the quick response and for the amazing work on your gem janko! I'll try to update and re-do the tests and report back.

[mshibuya]

Closing since this was fixed in ImageProcessing side.