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    Guide/Editing/Preview Quality

    Preview Quality

    Choose High, Balanced, or Low preview resolution to keep the editor smooth on any Mac.

    Editing
    💡

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    Preview Quality controls the resolution at which ScreenKite renders frames in the editor's live preview. Lowering it reduces GPU work per frame so playback stays smooth on complex projects — without touching your export at all.

    The control is a Quality button in the right cluster of the preview toolbar, identifiable by the speedometer icon.

    Preview toolbar right cluster showing the Quality button in its default High state (speedometer icon, no suffix)

    What Is Preview Quality?

    When ScreenKite plays back your project it composites each frame onto a Metal drawable. By default that drawable matches the full canvas resolution (High, 100%). Lower tiers shrink the drawable before compositing; Core Animation then upscales the result to fill the preview area, so the view stays the same physical size on screen — only the number of pixels rendered changes.

    Because pixel throughput scales with the square of the resolution multiplier, dropping to Low (50%) cuts rendered pixels to roughly a quarter of the High workload.

    Choosing a Tier

    TierResolutionUse case
    High100%Default. Full fidelity — best for final review or still-frame inspection.
    Balanced66%Smoother playback on mid-range Macs or projects with many overlapping effects.
    Low50%Smoothest playback on heavy projects with many layers, blur masks, or camera layouts.
    ✅

    Switch to Balanced or Low while editing, then switch back to High for a final quality check before exporting. Your choice persists across sessions.

    How to Change Preview Quality

    1. Open a project in the Project Editor.
    2. Click the Quality button (speedometer icon) in the right cluster of the preview toolbar.
    3. Select High, Balanced, or Low from the dropdown.

    The button label updates to show the tier name as a suffix whenever you are not on the default (High). For example, selecting Balanced shows Quality · Balanced. Selecting High again removes the suffix.

    Effect on Export

    Preview Quality has no effect on your exported video. Resolution and quality at export time are controlled separately by your canvas size and the options in the Export Settings dialog.

    Your chosen tier is stored in UserDefaults under the key editor.previewQuality and applies globally across all projects and launches.

    💡

    Changing preview quality pauses the background compositor momentarily while it adjusts the Metal drawable size, then resumes automatically. The timeline layout and all clip data remain untouched.

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    On this page

    What Is Preview Quality?Choosing a TierHow to Change Preview QualityEffect on Export