Question for Digital artists: What size do you work at?

I've been doing stuff in photoshop at about twice my final-submission size. So that's around (1714 wide by 1380 tall), or (1890 wide by 2403 tall). Then I collapse all the layers and shrink it to 50% before saving out as a JPG.

And when it came to doing the face, I felt pretty cramped. I'm thinking I need to go up bigger, but I'm worrying about bad, slow performance. (I'm already seeing a lot of paint-stroke time-lag).

What size do all of you other digital artists work at?

Well how big it is doesn't matter; What's your pixels per inch? If you're still working at 72 ppi (standard for web images), that would explain your problem. What I do is work at about 300 ppi, select my size (8 x 11 or what have you), and go to town. True, the digital image will be larger if you view "actual pixels", but this allows you to work in greater detail. And yes, this does increase the amount of memory the image eats up, though i'd think it wouldn't be as bad as working with a naturally huge image.

Also, you can zoom in without things getting all pixelated and you can more easily manipulate smaller features, such as a face.

Note that if you want to print something, you should really work closer to 600 ppi. Even at 300 you'll see pixelization once it pops out onto paper.

I usually work pretty small, around 1500 x 2000 for random sketches, and a lot of the times I don't even use up all that space. I feel comfortable around at 2000 x 3000 for decent sized stuff since I usually don't have crazy amount of detail. That is still considered pretty small, and you will want to go much larger if you want to print stuff.

With bigger sizes I kinda get intimidated when I zoom in at fullsize and see all the areas I have to cover, but I am trying to get used to working with big images. My January fanart was at 10,000 pixels high, because that was the max value Painter allowed. Otherwise it would have been around 15,000 or so. I started out much smaller, though.

Ppi does seem to make a difference, but it's something that has to be shown rather than described. It just feels nicer knowing that you can zoom in to 200% and the image still looks clear and you can commit more detail isntead of staring at a bunch of pixels.

I generally work at 300dpi.

I generally work at A3 or A4 (international paper sizes) at print resolution. (300 dpi) when I am painting. Its better to have a picture be big enough for print should the urge arise then not.

With coloring I generally just work on what ever size I am given. But it is generally 300-600 Dpi

Generally speaking, most artists should work at 300 dpi. That may be archaic sounding to some, but in the print industry most "print quality" images are at least 300 dpi. For line art, some may scan in at 600, but then cut it down to 300 once they clean the line art up and then color at 300 (that's mostly because working the whole image at 600 would become extremely taxing on most peoples CPUs once you add in multiple channels, layers, etc (Photoshop does anyways). It is ALWAYS safe to scale down from a high resolution pixel image, but scaling up introduces a loss in pixel quality. So in regards to LD suggesting you can scale up, your image will become noticeably more pixelated if you try to "add" more resolution. That's assuming I understood what LD meant by adding. It would be OK to add "physical" space, for example if you were working in a 4"x6" space, but realized you wanted to go 5"x7" - just make sure you don't try to add in a higher ppi/dpi to the physical space.

If you know your digital image will never be printed for any reason, standard screen resolution is 72 dpi or 96 dpi per inch. So you could work in "real" monitor size space and go 72 dpi and make your file that 4" x 6" and your image on your screen (if is 72pdi resolution) will appear at 4" x 6" on your screen at 100% zoom.

If you go the 300 dpi route. When you are all done, save that as your high resolution file and then convert one down to 72 dpi for screen/display purposes and save it as your low resolution one. Most collector's will want one of each.

I hope that made sense.

Normally, about 2x the size I want to display it as on the web, since I don't print much... but I almost always regret it later and wish I'd worked bigger.

Yeah, Lousy-Day, I'm more interested in overall number of pixels people are working at, as I'm not generally aiming at a printed piece as my final result. (although I *am* doing a big re-touching piece for my Sister that will be printed at some Giclee shop when its done and then framed. But thats an aberration for me )

So, really, I was mostly looking to see if I'm working much smaller than others.

It seems like that is the case, from what you've all said (ppi conversions considered). So, I think I'm going to start working larger. I'll try double or maybe even triple and see how that works.

I do use lots of layers, and I do zoom in and out a lot. (I'm trying not to spend the entire time zoomed-in, tho. I need to be able to realize the image as a whole, otherwise it doesn't come out right.)

its funny, I checked the .psd files just now, specifically the ones that were final before I shrank em for export to .jpg. Looks like I went from 72 ppi, to 250 ppi, to 150 ppi. I know I didn't even look at that before, didn't set or change it in PS. So I must've set it on the scanner when I scanned in the pencils.

So, thank you all for your replies! I appreciate the assistance!

If that's your thing, memorizing various image sizes in terms of pixel measurements, by all means knock yourself out. Most people think in terms of how big they would like the image to be in real world terms, most likely inches in North America.

Once you know how big you want the image to be in real world terms, you just pick the resolution you need--72dpi for web graphics, 300dpi for print. Let photoshop figure out how many pixels that is, my clients don't care. I don't measure things in pixels in Photoshop. I don't even know if you can in my 3d apps.

yeah, overall pixels is really all I'm worried about right now.

I just want to be able to get the good detail in the face when I'm working.

the final export to a screen-viewable .jpg will always be smaller than my working size. (maybe when I'm much better, I'll think about printing and clients all that fun stuff )

I really do appreciate all the helpful replies, thanks all.

LD, I think you need to understand that JKat does this for a living. He has his Bachelors and is currently working towards his Masters, so he isn't some "untrained" or "learned by guessing" kind of guy who doesn't know what he is talking about.

I don't know what kind of schooling or training you actually have, but I do believe that U-naught had a simple enough question that didn't require a complex and over stated answer and a tit-for-tat argument from the forum gurus.

So lets all go back to reading Alice in Wonderland!

Thanks LD. I would quote here, but man it would bury my response.

Anyways, yes CRT (which are non-widescreen/flat LCD monitors) is where this standard came from. That was why your initial math was slightly off. CRTs have two things that make measuring and applying the type of math you used somewhat difficult - the natural curvature of the tube and pixel pitch. CRT's have a curvature to the screen which your math does not include and they also have a pixel pitch (actual size of the pixel on your screen) which is typically measured in millimeters (so you can see here, conversions from a metric unit to our American inch standard adds potential for variation in numbers).

In addition to the above, there is also pixel ratios to consider - CRTs used typically a 5:4 (or 4:3) whereas most current LCDs use 16:9.

Now, sure in the last 5+ years the shift from CRT to LCD technology has been HUGE and CRTs are practically obsolete, even though they provided greater color range (including color calibration), adjustment in screen size ratio without image quality loss, etc. However, the terminology of 72 dpi and 96 dpi (yes, it has gone up - my LCD screen will display up to 120 dpi) is still used. With aspect ratios as they are now, I wouldn't be surprised if 75 ppi is more visually accurate. But typically monitors (in their monitor resolution setting windows) will only give you the industry established values of 72, 96, 120 etc.

Could I of said increase your existing pixels from "1890 wide by 2403 tall" to something double that - sure, I could of. But based on my experiences in both real life work experiences and the classroom, understanding how pixel dimensions and physical space dimensions are related (which your mathematical examples did prove) is fundamentally important as well as establishes good habits for developing digital artists.

And to U-Naught, I feel as if this somehow got taken off topic unintentionally - I apologize for that. I knew you you were becoming more active in dA and that even dA can be misleading as they have you post images using pixel dimensions, yet they promote selling the work as "prints" using standard inch unit measurements. So, again it's just a good habit to get into in regards to how pixel (PPI/DPI) relate to physical space.

On a side note, thanks VexXxa (I also have an associates too )

If you're not working in at least a bajillion pixels, you're not fit to be in my crew.

I just deleted a message that took me all day (from 10 am this morning till now at 5:36 pm without a break) to write up. I am just amazed that I was able to do that with only a bowl of cereal to keep me going, after I stayed up till like 5 am for my previous post when I missed dinner yesterday by typing and I am not sure if I even had a lunch yesterday. I wasted two full days and I just don't care anymore. I will just keep what I have learned to myself and only leave this image from what was inevitibly going to be another meaningless lengthy post.



I think I will stay away for a while. Have a nice week everyone.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it still true that the size of a single pixel actually isn't defined? I believe I just ran across this when doing some digital photography stuff and didn't know if it's still the case.