transform scaleing down makes image blurry

Question

I try to make a little zoom effect on hover for some products. For that I scale the container of the image down to 95% and scale it too 100% on hover:

However the image scaled down apears blurry . I tried different solutions given in other Questions about this topic, like: backface-visibility, blur(0), translateZ. But nothing seems to change anything.

Is there a way to make this prettier or is this as good as it can get?

.container {
	transform: scale(0.95);
	transition: transform 70ms ease-in;
  float: left;
}

.container:hover {
	transform: scale(1);
}

<div class="container">
<img src="https://s28.postimg.org/kagu55chp/csm_632san_Amalfi_Pearl_ca02784e51.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="container">
<img src="https://s24.postimg.org/cdecsntlx/csm_594san_Amalfi_Silver_bbb138a25a.jpg" />
</div>

Answer 1

Add the following CSS to your img element (Not a safe hack cross-browser-wise):

img {
   image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; /* Firefox */
   image-rendering: -o-crisp-edges; /* Opera */
   image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast; /* Webkit (non-standard naming) */
   image-rendering: crisp-edges;
   -ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor; /* IE (non-standard property) */
}

Snippet below:

.container {
  transform: scale(.95);
  transition: transform 70ms ease-in;
  float: left;
}
.container:hover {
  transform: scale(1);
}
img {
  image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; /* Firefox */
  image-rendering: -o-crisp-edges; /* Opera */
  image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast; /* Webkit (non-standard naming) */
  image-rendering: crisp-edges;
  -ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor; /* IE (non-standard property) */
}

<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s28.postimg.org/kagu55chp/csm_632san_Amalfi_Pearl_ca02784e51.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s24.postimg.org/cdecsntlx/csm_594san_Amalfi_Silver_bbb138a25a.jpg" />
</div>

Alternative 1: to avoid dimension altering properties, something like translate on img:

.container {
  transition: transform 70ms ease-in;
  float: left;
  margin: 5px;
}
.container:hover img {
  transform: translate(0, -3px);
}

<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s28.postimg.org/kagu55chp/csm_632san_Amalfi_Pearl_ca02784e51.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s24.postimg.org/cdecsntlx/csm_594san_Amalfi_Silver_bbb138a25a.jpg" />
</div>

Alternative 2: box-shadow:

.container {
  transition: transform 70ms ease-in;
  float: left;
  margin: 5px;
}
.container:hover img {
  box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px #888888;
}

<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s28.postimg.org/kagu55chp/csm_632san_Amalfi_Pearl_ca02784e51.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="container">
  <img src="https://s24.postimg.org/cdecsntlx/csm_594san_Amalfi_Silver_bbb138a25a.jpg" />
</div>