After Effects: Images on whole pixel still blurry edges

Question

I am jsut working on a new After Effects Project. I have a bunch of images I am working with and I just wondered, why the edges of images are so blurry.

First I thought it might have something to do with the fact that sometimes, images don't lay on whole pixel. So I used an expression to keep them on whole rounded pixels. BUT! even when they are laying on whole pixels, they have unsharp edges.

My Question is, is there any Opportunity to fix that and in case you know how, could you please tell me?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

So, I figured it out by myself. The problem was the anchorpoint. My images were on even pixels but the anchorpoint was odd.

So the solution is to use following expressions:

// Position
newX = Math.round(transform.position[0]);
newY = Math.round(transform.position[1]);
[newX, newY]

// Anchorpoint
newX = Math.round(transform.anchorpoint[0]);
newY = Math.round(transform.anchorpoint[1]);
[newX, newY]

UPDATE 2

Since I use this expression everytime now I am animating motion graphics, I thought it would be cool to make an actual after effects script of it. You can purchase it here: FIXL -Snap Layers to Pixel

UPDATE

When you try to animate layers with these expressions, it comes to rough animations. That's why I wrote a new expression that only applies if a keyframe is set. So its safe that whenever an image or layer is resting on the same position for a longer time, it will stay on even pixels.

Add this Expression to the position property of your layer:

n = transform.position.numKeys
t = time;
timeOfKeyframe = null;

for(i=1; i <= n; i++){
    if ( t == transform.position.key(i).time ){
        timeOfKeyframe = transform.position.key(i).time;
    }
    else{
        value;
    }
}

if (t == timeOfKeyframe) {
    keyValue = transform.position.valueAtTime(timeOfKeyframe);
    roundedValue = [Math.round(keyValue[0]),Math.round(keyValue[1])];
}
else{
    value;
}