In some embodiments, an image manipulation application receives, via a user interface, an input to manipulate an image displayed at a target resolution. The image manipulation application determines a normalized number of tracker events between two consecutive renditions of the image caused by manipulating the image based on the input. Based on the normalized number of tracker events, the image manipulation application selects a version of the image from a set of versions of the image that have different resolutions of the image including the target resolution. The selected version of the image has a lower resolution than the target resolution. The image manipulation application manipulates the selected version of the image based on the input and generates an updated image for display in the user interface in the next rendition of the image.