@JDW In testing I discovered I could obtain smaller file sizes and sharper results on non-retina displays with highly compressed retina resolution images thanks to the vagaries of pixel density. They also look great on retina displays where normal resolution images look soft.
All was well until changes were made a few months ago to webkit browsers and suddenly everything was mushy on Safari or Chrome. The CSS script I applied just about fixes it. I’ve not used Sparkle but this problem is browser based, therefore it’s the same for everybody.
In Rapidweaver there are various stacks and scripts that will load a non-retina image initially then serve up a retina version if they detect a retina resolution image. I tried a couple options but was never entirely satisfied.
Try visiting http://www.sunnymede.net/retina/ in Safari and drag the browser window with your mouse to make it wider or narrower. You should instantly see the images become sharper but the moment you release the mouse it becomes soft again.
I have reported this problem to both Google & Apple and I know Apple at least were taking a look, but nothing has yet been done. FireFox always looks great.
In theory, yes we could provide standard resolution images to non-retina displays, but that’s a step backwards when you can achieve smaller file sizes and sharper images using one set of retina ready images on all screens. Webkit needs to sort this out.
On a side note, I have found that automated tools for downsizing retina ready images tend to deliver poor results. The best method I have found is to save for web in Photoshop at double the intended size on screen, since Photoshop defaults to 72ppi, then preview at 50% and bring down the compression slider until the visual quality starts to suffer.
There are lots of additional factors to consider if performance is an issue, such as the way files are delivered via http or http2 and CloudFlare Pro offers a brilliant algorithm for compressing images without loss of quality, but that is a whole different topic.
Ashley
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