Comic Resolution?

[teacup_creations]

Hello, me again c:
So this is one for all the creators out there:
What resolution do you upload your comics in?
Since I exclusively do webcomics, I personally draw on a 940x2820 canvas and resize to 640x1920 for upload to tapas for better readability on desktop.
But what about you? How do you like to size your pages?

[storytimebiondi]

I do my pages with print in mind. So I stick to a 400dpi on a 14x11 page size with margins. I resize down to the maximum tapas will allow later on.

[Hexigate]

I originally make my pages on a standard US 8" x 11" canvas, which translates into 2550 x 3300 pixels. This is because i've first started posting on DeviantArt. However, the original canvas is far too big for Tapastic, which limits the width dimension into 800 pixels.

I post the original page to DeviantArt. However, for Tapastic and Webtoons, i select each frame of the page, single them out, resize them so they're only 800 pixels wide, and save each frame as its own image.

[teacup_creations]

Do you ever find that resizing your images for tapas and webtoons messes up some of the detail in your work? Or is that not so much of an issue?

[punkarsenic]

i draw my pages at like 3000x1500 i think, and then resize to 940xwhateverthefuck for tapas

[storytimebiondi]

Resizing down seems to have no issue for me anyway.

[Hexigate]

Absolutely. Particularly for frames that are wide, i've witnessed some severe resolution issues. There was one page i've made before i've started posting on Tapas, where all three frames had wide aspect ratios (one end of page to other). I made those frames wide in order to make the shots feel more cinematic. However, on Tapastic and Webtoons, the resizing ruined the legibility of the text inside the frames.

After seeing the result, i've learned to not do any widescreen framing as long as there is text/dialogue accompanying it.

[teacup_creations]

Oh I could see how that would be an issue :0
But I suppose tapas and webtoons are created more for the webcomic genre which just involves a lot of scrolling u//u
I have see some people use that to their advantage though.

[NanettesClouds]

Heya, according to this episode from this cool podcast if you ever plan on printing (which, unless you're doing some long-scrolly/animated comic, you probably should go forward asuming you will) you should do the following.

• IN GENERAL: You should never work at anything below 300 DPI.
• FOR B&W/LINEWORK: You should work at 600, or even 1200 DPI
• FOR COLOR: You should work at 300 minimum.

(the reasoning behind all of this is explained in the podcast)

When exporting for the web you should do so at the highest quality the site will let you. You might have to check the sites FAQ or otherwise do a quick google search to find out what this is.

From what I know (they may have changed this but I haven't checked) Tapas' maximum size is 940px wide, and any size long, as long as the file size is under like, 2mb or something? In Clip Studio Paint I can set the export dimensions to exactly what they need to be without too much hassle. I usually export as a PNG.

For my comic I work at 11x17' at 350dpi. This gives me a little bit of extra wiggle room when scaling things up/down without having to worry about them being blurry. Ideally I would like to be working at 600dpi, but some of my brushes tend to lag out a bit at that size. That said, some programs are more lightweight than others and can handle larger file sizes better. For example, Paint Tool Sai is EXTREMELY lightweight, and so you can handle very large file sizes on it without a problem, I don't use PTS, but it's got a great reputation. Clip studio paint is a bit chunkier, but when working at 350dpi I hardly ever have problems, this is what I do 99% of my work in. Photoshop is a beast and my computer really has to struggle to use it at 300dpi. I don't usually draw with photoshop, but I like using it for FX work sometimes.

Hope this helps

EDIT: Another note about working at 11x17', is that because of the way standard american paper sizes work, 11x17 sizes down perfect to an 8.5x11 page. This means when I do print I can do so on a big sheet of paper and make some cool large-format books. This is what I did for my Minicomic and people responded really well to my print edition of it. So yahh.

[punkarsenic]

Paint Tool Sai is EXTREMELY lightweight, and so you can handle very large file sizes on it without a problem

iiiiii dunno, either im using crazy crazy massive files or it does cause a problem. i work with 2500x3750px (was wrong earlier, jus checked) pages at 320dpi, and each page has... 30 layers? at this size the program will refuse to perform functions halfway through finishing a batch of four pages, and i cant work with a batch larger than that.

is that just crazy big dimensions or?

[NanettesClouds]

According to my calculations you're canvas is 7.8x11.7' so yeah that's a lot smaller than my canvases, so I guess maybe I'm wrong? I mean your mileage will vary depending on how beefy your computer is. So that's a factor.

But also you're using 30 layers, I tend to use about 20 maybe? (if we're talking about comics, for illustrations/paintings I use about 3-5 layers.)

Like I said I've never used PTS, so I was just talking based on what I had heard, so its very possible that I was wrong.

[punkarsenic]

my computers pretty beefy, SAI has an issue with its internal memory(?) from what my research shows, mine is 207MB. it reserves space for making a new canvas, meaning once it hits like 80% (its never below like 50%) it wont let you select, make new layers, make particularly large brush strokes... stuff like that. i have no idea how to make the internal memory larger neither.

tho youre right, it may well be the amount of layers. (i was convinced i had really big pages :'0 feeling like a nitwit)

[NanettesClouds]

No worries :V DPI is confusing.

For reference the calculation is

1 inch = your DPI value. (and technically when talking about computer screens it's PPI but whatever)

so 11x17 inches at 350dpi would be 3850x5950px.

[punkarsenic]

thanks for that, i'll remember to use those settings next chapter

[teacup_creations]

Wow that was very detailed- I was asking more out of curiosity than anything but thank you so much for taking your time to answer c:

I'll definitely be needing to check out the podcast if I ever decide to move out of the world of webcomics c:

it must be tough drawing at such high resolution with such a clunky program like Clip studio @o@

[NanettesClouds]

I'll definitely be needing to check out the podcast if I ever decide to move out of the world of webcomics c:

I'd say its a great podcast for webcomic people too, 2/3 of the hosts do webcomics and the third host started her (very successful) career by doing webcomics. Also I'd recommend working at 300+dpi regardless of if you want to print, as there are other benefits to working at that high resolution. I mentioned earlier that it gives me a bit of wiggle-room when resizing drawings, but in addition to that scaling down your artwork also smooths out wobbly linework, gets rid of little nics that you missed while coloring, and probably some other handy stuff that I can't think of right now cuz I just woke up. I feel like the only exception is if you're doing a comic with animated gifs, something like Saint for Rent, or to a lesser extent, Colorless, but even then you would want to work at a higher resolution than what you export at.

it must be tough drawing at such high resolution with such a clunky program like Clip studio @o@

I made it sound a worse than it actually is. CSP isn't very clunky at all actually, and working at high resolutions gives you a bit of freedom for doing detail work, and also working at large sizes has some interesting interactions with the specific brushes that I use but that's probably too nitty gritty to get into here. I only really notice it choking when I use really large brushes with a lot of detail in them, and usually when I'm doing that I don't care about precision and the lagginess doesn't get in the way of anything. So yeah.

[beta1042]

Are we talking size or resolution?

Size I just limit it to the webtoon rules since I post there, I think it's 800x1280 or something like that.
I do a long format comic, and keep in mind I am pretty new to this and probably have no idea what I'm doing, but so far it has been working for me, but I typically draw pictures at 350dpi, and then copy paste them into a super long strip that is 72dpi, and arrange them into the panels. Then cut that sucker up with image magick(a program... probably using the same code that these comic websites use to piece the art back together).

I tested out doing the actual comic at a higher resolution, but since I upload on webtoon and webtoon makes you convert to jpg, the quality declines regardless. And working at a lower resolution on a large strip(I'm talking 800x25,000 long) is just faster and easier on my machine. I could probably cut the comic up more when I work on it, but i like having as much as I can on one picture because it helps me when I finish it up.

[LordVincent]

I do 300 dpi for everything, and usually follow the size guidelines of whatever tool i intend to print with or publish on. So for Bloodroot and Ghost Play I've made an A5 template suitable for printing through Lulu with bleed (and assumingly most other companies as well). I personally prefer smaller books and honestly the A5 is a bit too large for my taste so for future independent series I will probably make a new template that suits the print guidelines for pocketbook size.

For tapas exclusive, I draw it directly into the 940x4000px that they want it published in. I know most comic creators would rip their hair out at someone who doesn't draw it at least twice the final size but I have tested and made sure it would be fine for print without having to do an ugly upsize in the template mentioned above, and I see no good reason to spend extra time and computer space just to achieve the same result.

As for promotional images, I would much rather make images specifically designed for that (:

For Bloodroot and Ghost Play I downsize to 800px wide so it can be published smoothly on both webtoon and tapas.

[agentfink]

I use Clip Studio and I like the different export features it has.

Comic pages at actual print size (before trim), 6.875 x 10.5 inches or 4128 x 6300px at 600 dpi. Working digital, I don't see the use to draw at a larger size than that. I tried that with my first chapter, and for some reason, scaling down to print was a cumbersome process. I work to scale now and find that it takes away some of the headache.

When I export to web, I export PNGs at 25 or 20% (there is an option to enter %) and 720x1099px is that % that works for me.

When I export to print, I export pngs at full size and then bring it into Photoshop to convert to 300 dpi.

[IdiotWithPencil]

I usually start with a 1500x2000 with 300 dpi in Photoshop/Krita(for inking), then I down scale it to 940x1253 with 72 dpi for the web (still keep the 300 dpi one )

tapas is pushing more to phones than desktop sadly =I

Do you ever find that resizing your images for tapas and webtoons messes up some of the detail in your work?

yep that happens when ever you compress and image, sometimes it's good since if you keep it in mind you can save some work on detailing small things =P