CSS transition effect makes image blurry / moves image 1px, in Chrome?

I have some CSS that on hover, a CSS transition effect will moves a div.

The problem, as you can see in the example, is that the translate transition has the horrible side effect of making the image in the div move by 1px down/right (and possibly resize ever so slightly?) so that it appears out of place and out of focus...

The glitch seems to apply the whole time the hover effect is applied, and from a process of trial and error I can safely say only seems to occur when the translate transition moves the div (box shadow and opacity are also applied but make no difference to the error when removed).

The problem only seems to happen when the page has scrollbars. So the example with just one instance of the div is fine, but once more identical divs are added and the page therefore requires a scrollbar the problem strikes again...

Solution 1:

2020 update

• If you have issues with blurry images, be sure to check answers from below as well, especially the image-rendering CSS property.
• For best practice accessibility and SEO wise you could replace the background image with an <img> tag using object-fit CSS property.

Original answer

Try this in your CSS:

.your-class-name {
    /* ... */
    -webkit-backface-visibility: hidden;
    -webkit-transform: translateZ(0) scale(1, 1);
}

What this does is it makes the division to behave "more 2D".

• Backface is drawn as a default to allow flipping things with rotate and such. There's no need to that if you only move left, right, up, down, scale or rotate (counter-)clockwise.
• Translate Z-axis to always have a zero value.
• Chrome now handles backface-visibility and transform without the -webkit- prefix. I currently don't know how this affects other browsers rendering (FF, IE), so use the non-prefixed versions with caution.

Solution 2:

You need to apply 3d transform to the element, so it will get its own composite layer. For instance:

.element{
    -webkit-transform: translateZ(0);
    transform: translateZ(0);
}

or

.element{
    -webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0);
    transform: translate3d(0,0,0);
}

More about layer creation criteria you can read right here: Accelerated Rendering in Chrome

An explanation:

Examples (hover green box):

• Problem: Transition may cause blink effect on sibling elements (OSx Lion, Chrome 30)
• Solution: An element on its own composite layer

When you use any transition on your element it cause browser to recalculate styles, then re-layout your content even if transition property is visual (in my examples it is an opacity) and finaly paint an element:

The issue here is re-layout of the content that can make an effect of "dancing" or "blinking" elements on the page while transition happens. If you will go to settings, check "Show composite layers" checkbox and then apply 3d transform to an element, you will see that it gets it's own layer which outlined with orange border.

After element gets its own layer, browser just needs to composite layers on transition without re-layout or even paint operations so problem have to be solved:

Solution 3:

Had the same problem with embeded youtube iframe (Translations were used for centering iframe element). None of the solutions above worked until tried reset css filters and magic happened.

Structure:

<div class="translate">
     <iframe/>
</div>

Style [before]

.translate {
  transform: translateX(-50%);
  -webkit-transform: translateX(-50%);
}

Style [after]

.translate {
  transform: translateX(-50%);
  -webkit-transform: translateX(-50%);
  filter: blur(0);
  -webkit-filter: blur(0);
}

Solution 4:

I recommended an experimental new attribute CSS I tested on latest browser and it's good:

image-rendering: optimizeSpeed;             /*                     */
image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges;          /* Firefox             */
image-rendering: -o-crisp-edges;            /* Opera               */
image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast; /* Chrome (and Safari) */
image-rendering: optimize-contrast;         /* CSS3 Proposed       */
-ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor;   /* IE8+                */

With this the browser will know the algorithm for rendering