In the smartphone, laptop, and PC markets, the share of devices with 2K, 4K, and 5K screen resolutions is steadily growing, with more and more such products appearing each year. Accordingly, the development of digital graphics, video, web design, and animation is also progressing and must keep up to ensure everything looks high-quality and beautiful on higher resolutions. For instance, YouTube already supports 2K and 4K video, and since 2014, Apple has been selling iMacs with Retina 4K/5K displays.

For web designers and developers, this technological shift means it’s time to go beyond simply optimizing a website and making it responsive — it’s crucial to pay special attention to graphics to ensure flawless display at high resolutions. To understand the progress “rolling in” on humanity, we’ll explore the features of high-resolution Retina displays and the benefits of Photoshop for web designers in this context. Retina screens are used on iPads, iPhones, iMacs, MacBooks, and other Apple devices — and as their market share continues to grow, websites must support this technology.

High Resolution Technologies

What’s the difference between 4K, 5K, and Retina? It all comes down to pixels — a concept most people now know by heart. But let’s recap.

When Apple introduced its proprietary Retina technology, it explained that the human eye can perceive far more pixels than standard displays offer. So, while a standard 15-inch screen with a 1440x900 resolution has that exact pixel count, a 15-inch Retina screen has a resolution of 2880x1800 (exactly twice as many pixels). In essence, Retina technology means increasing the number of pixels per frame.

No one denies that with this number of pixels, image quality is incredibly high — visuals look like glossy magazines or high-end photos. If a website uses vector graphics, everything looks great too. But web design often uses raster graphics, which leads to display problems. And it doesn’t matter whether a client/visitor is using an iMac, iPhone, or iPad — the issue lies in Retina technology itself.

Here's what it looks like: if you have an image that’s 600 x 400 px, its quality will noticeably degrade on a Retina screen — appearing blurry or pixelated — because the resolution needs to be twice (for 2K) or four times (for 4K) as large, with a much higher pixel count. The original image is scaled up, causing distortion.

Sure, you could immediately create high-resolution files and use CSS/HTML code to specify how each image should display ( img src="logo.png" height="150" width="150" ).

But not all users have Apple devices (Retina is exclusive to them), so visitors with standard monitors would have to use more bandwidth to load high-quality images — and then wait for them to scale down. Many won’t tolerate that, and will just leave the site and find an alternative.

The convenient solution to graphics issues for everyone is to have multiple image versions in your project, so each user sees what’s intended for their device. Retina screen resolutions are typically labeled as @2x, @3x, @4x, and the scaling is expressed in percentages — 100, 200, etc.

Using SVG

All images can be saved in SVG — Scalable Vector Graphics — a very handy and unique format. Unlike raster formats that store images as pixels, SVG uses XML text to describe image geometry, making it vector-based. The benefit is that SVGs scale easily while retaining quality. Photoshop doesn’t support it natively, but there are scripts and extensions for exporting to SVG.

However, SVG doesn’t support photographs or complex artwork. You’ll still need raster files in different resolutions for those. But for logos, icons, graphs, and charts — SVG is ideal. PNG can be an alternative, although nearly all modern browsers now support SVG.

CSS

Some shadows, gradients, corners, and even headers can be created using CSS. This is useful because it reduces HTTP requests, cuts bandwidth, and improves rendering speed.

Script

You can use the script Retina.js. It’s quite handy — as soon as a user opens the site, the script checks the screen resolution and pixel density. If it detects a Retina display, it fetches and replaces images with higher-quality versions from the server. The requirement: images for Retina must include suffixes like @2x, @3x, or @4x in their filenames.

For example: image@2x.jpg.

These high-resolution images can use different file formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF. The project page explains how to use the script — it’s one of the simplest Retina solutions on the web.

Retina Images in Photoshop

Here’s how you prepare graphics in Photoshop:

  1. When creating a new document, use width and height values that are 2 or 3 times larger than what will be displayed on the screen.
  2. In the title, add “@2x” or “@3x” (depending on the multiplier).
  3. Use vector objects wherever possible. Don’t forget to convert fonts to shapes before exporting the image.
  4. In the File → Export → Save for Web menu, set the output size to 50% if you created a @2x image.

This way, the actual image will be twice as crisp, but will be displayed at the standard resolution in the browser.

When saving for web, choose 50% — that’s the magic behind smooth display on Retina screens. Don’t forget to check “Convert to sRGB” and optimize the format depending on content (JPEG for photos, PNG for graphics).

In the preview window, check the image’s appearance and weight. You can export different size options for both Retina and regular monitors — and add them to your site using the <picture> or <srcset> tags. These are new HTML5 elements that allow you to load different image versions depending on screen resolution and type.

Summary

Modern websites should be Retina-ready — it’s no longer optional. The number of high-resolution devices is growing, and your designs must look equally good on a 2K MacBook and a basic Android phone.

Retina displays are demanding. A simple image from 10 years ago that looked “crisp” on a regular screen now appears blurry on a Retina display. Not every user will notice — but those who do will leave your site in 3–5 seconds and go to one that loads faster and looks sharper.

That’s why design must evolve along with display technologies.

Web design is no longer just about aesthetics and layout — it’s about responsiveness, optimization, resolution, and context-aware content. You can keep using your usual tools — just export smarter. You don’t need to design separately for every device. What you need is adaptivity, resolution awareness, and performance balance.

Want to dive deeper? Check out these tools and resources:

  • Retina.js — automatic high-res image replacement
  • WebKit demo — how srcset works in HTML5
  • Can I Use — browser support for features like <picture> and SVG
  • SVG Sprites — icons and mini-graphics in vector format

If your site still uses standard resolution images — it’s time to update. With just a little effort, you’ll give your users crisp visuals that feel smooth and modern. Retina is no longer futuristic — it’s standard.