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InfiniteLine
Feb '23

I'm a digital art novice, but I can doodle and make decent enough graphics for marketing materials, etc with procreate on my ipad. I'm here as a novel writer, but still need to generate some images, such as thumbnail, cover, banner, ad, and other promotional graphics.

The Tapas images sizes are pretty small..
Thumbnail - 300x300 px
Cover - 960x1440 px
Banner - 1280x460 px
Ad - 280x180 px

How do I resize my graphics to these small sizes without losing all quality? Most advice online seems to say to work as close to the final size as possible, but no one actually creates at these tiny scales, right? I usually start with my screen size (1668x2388 px) or larger as a canvas then crop as needed...

Am I out of luck and just need to redo everything on a smaller canvas...?

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    Feb '23

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    Mar '23
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Shanny8
Feb '23

Save your work as a PNG file. PNG files are similar to PDF in that they retain a great bit of quality when the original size is reduced.

InfiniteLine
Feb '23
1

Thanks for the advice. So I should wait to scale down the image until after I've saved the file, not scale down the canvas in procreate?

artamazon
Feb '23

You want to create a large version with the same ratio and then save out at the correct size. So for example for the thumbnail, you'd work at maybe 1000x1000 and then save it at 300x300. Leave your original file at the large size, don't rescale the canvas. You should have options when you save for what size to save the file.

RedLenai
Feb '23

Most logical answer:

  • Work on a big size but keeping the same ratio
  • When you finish, export in the small size and in PNG if you want to preserve quality
  • Pay attention to DPI, try to work in 200 or 300dpi
InfiniteLine
Feb '23

Thanks, this is helpful! I always save as PNG. It looks like Procreate doesn't give the option to change the file size during export though. :frowning:

BoomerZ
Feb '23

work at a large size and don't save at a smaller size. You work at a larger size and save at that size. This is your original work. Usually 3 times the original is good. (unless you are doing a large poster or advertisement, size accordingly). When you export the drawing to a new file to be published, you resize that copy. This way you keep the original. There is no way to resize down without destroying information you will never get back (unless you use vector art but that is a completely different thing). DPI has zero to do with digital when you size by pixel, that is a print thing. If you image is 300px across, 75, 150, 300, 600 etc dpi means nothing unless you print it. You can't hide 300 dots in a 1200 px across drawing. The drawing is only 1200 across, that is it. The only thing that will happen is when you print it, the image will be physically very small. The resolution will be the same.

river121693
Feb '23
RedLenai

I would even say 300-450 DPI for color and DPI 600 for black and white in case you ever want to print tbh

RedLenai
Feb '23

Yep, it'll depend on what the person wants. Personally, since I don't plan to print any of my work, I just keep it at 200dpi for webcomics, and 300 for commissions

cherrystark
Feb '23

I'm a digital art newb and use Canva for a lot of my work, but I've found it helpful to simply start with the size canvas you want to use and then simply adjust the view on my tablet or computer so I can see all of the canvas clearly on the screen. They also have a resizing feature that creates a duplicate, though resized file that can be pretty much any dimensions. That's been helpful for me so I don't have to redo pieces again and again.

Mallory
Feb '23

One thing I recommend you do if you work on large canvases is always zoom out to the approximate final size (e.g. if you're drawing at 1000x1000 and your final size is 300x300, zoom out to ~30% or ~1/3 the size) often while you work, to see if it still reads the same. Oftentimes you'll get bogged down with details that will 100% be lost in the compression just by virtue of screen resolutions. I also often "scale up" every tool - e.g. if I normally work with a brush that's 20 pixels wide, I'll make it 60 so that it is again consistent with my other art when the image gets shrunk.

ETA: Also I am not the most procreate-savvy user, but you can duplicate your canvas and then resize, touch-up and export the duplicate if you can't resize things elsewhere.

InfiniteLine
Feb '23

Ah yes, that makes sense. I do zoom out a lot to observe, just to an estimated size. Doesn’t have the same effect though because it won’t pixelate just doing that. In fact, I think even if I screenshot a zoomed out high pixel image it ends up being better quality than a resized image. Probably because I’m going from like 2000 down to 300 px….

Interestingly, if I start a blank 300x300px canvas, even my straight edge brush is blurry right from the start—no resizing or anything. Is that normal or do I need to edit the brush to be even finer for that small scale?

BoomerZ
Feb '23

Just remember everything gets resized. So your 6 pix across line going from 2000 to 300 is now 1 px across and will disappear some times. You will lose some detail so don't zoom in as do very fine detailed work and waste the time if it just disappears when you resize.

InfiniteLine
Feb '23

Oooh, that description helps a lot. Never thought of it like that.

Must be mildly entertaining for all you comic folk to watch a writer flail about with digital art! 🤪

thepenmonster
Feb '23

A half decent graphics program will have options for the type of resizing it does. Some of them are better than others at preserving details like ink lines. Play around a bit.

But in the end you are not only going to lose detail because of the small image sizes, your art will very likely only be seen on a tiny phone screen and they won't be able to parse much detail even if it's there. Most online comics are simplistically drawn... like a 1960s Flintstones cartoon has more detailed backgrounds... because the reader needs to quickly scan the visual information through a bad medium. Cross-hatching especially can't make the transition to Squintsville.

That means you have to purposefully design your 300x300 thumbnail to lack detail.

tl;dr- Keep working at your size. Design for the final result and intended medium. Fiddle with the resize settings (if you can) until you get something that doesn't make you cry.

BoomerZ
Feb '23

Best quote on the subject...

thecrystalrook
Feb '23

Don't work in terms of screen size, work in terms of DPI and work with images as large as an actual piece of paper. That should be your original copy that you'll produce transformations from - i.e. resizing. The larger image you start with, the better off you'll be after shrinking. There's always going to be quality loss though - regardless of format be it JPG or PNG - because the resize step happens before the compression of those file formats is applied.

DarkSena
Feb '23

The problem with PNG I personally see is the gianormous size because you keep it from high to low quality preset and don't downscale the pixels. I personally do keep everything in PSD files but all the pages are in JPEG with high quality of 10, this way the pages keep good quality but aren't so big.

InfiniteLine
Feb '23

This is all extremely educational. I’m learning a ton! Thanks everyone for the advice!

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