How much smaller can digital canvas size be compared to possible print size?

[Adam Thornton 0]

Hi folks,

If you are doing a digital illustration that you know might be printed up to A2 size (roughly 59x42cm), would you create your new canvas that size?
It seems quite big to me.

Perhaps another way of asking this might be, if I set the canvas at 300dpi and, say, 19x14cm / 2200x1600pixels (that's about a third of the size of A2), would the quality of the print at A2 still be excellent?

I'm working towards selling premium-quality prints and will be offering the option of up to A2 size. However, it's critical the quality will still be great even at close inspection.

Thanks for any answers!

Adam
UK

[lizardillo]

@adam-thornton-0 Hi Adam, I would keep as close to 300dpi as possible if you want a good quality art print, perhaps 200 at a push.

Are you thinking of giclee printing for art prints? If you want to work on a smaller canvas increase the res. For working on large format it’s common to work at 50 or 25% scale at a higher res (e.g. 50% scale at 600dpi) so when it is enlarged it is 300dpi. The larger the format and the distance away you look at it the lower the final res when full size but A2 isn’t all that big and for an art print it would be a shame to lose quality.

Some digital printers can handle 150dpi fine (as my old boss used to say - digital is more forgiving than litho) but it’s common to have preflight settings to catch anything under 250dpi. It’s been a while since I worked at a printers and digital printers get better all the time so the best thing to do is contact some art printers and ask how they want the artwork supplying. Some have a FAQ page saying how they want the files.

You can always scale down if you make it too big but scaling up is an issue.

[Adam Thornton 0]

@lizardillo Thanks very much for this, Liz. I'm sincerely grateful. Right now I'm about to take my artwork in a new direction, which includes selling prints, but I sat down at the tablet this morning and realised that before I've even started painting I need to get my dimensions and canvas size right for printing! Sounds like you have experience working in the printing industry.

Yes, it will be for giclee printing of my paintings. It's possible that I might be able to buy my own giclee-capable printer in the coming months. Been researching printers but the manufacturers don't give this sort of advice.

I tend to exclusively work at 300dpi now. I have read in a few places that is what is needed for professional-res, for example in children's books. Although obviously A2 will be bigger. I've never painted at a higher dpi. Exciting!

So to confirm, would you recommend that if I am painting at 1/3 A2 size then I should have it at 900dpi, or is that overdoing it?

I'll do what you suggest and contact some art printers.

Thanks again!

[lizardillo]

@adam-thornton-0 900dpi may be a bit much and make the file slow and a bit hard to work with. It’s a bit of a tricky balance. There’s a chance you may be able to go to 150dpi at full size for your A2 but I would always check with the printers first. There are digital printing presses that can print spot colours now any all sorts of fancy stuff. There’s also software that can upscale and resample without losing quality (better than Photoshop) they may be able to enlarge files for you if they have it.

I worked at a printers for 6 years and then at design and advertising agencies after that. I’ve put a lot of ink on paper for just about everything. I think I have CMYK blood by now

[Adam Thornton 0]

@lizardillo Excellent, Liz. Thanks again. Your last sentence made me chuckle!

[jimsz]

@adam-thornton-0

if you're going to be paying to have the prints made check with the manufacturer. They know what works with their printers the best and if you're going to be buying them from a site either on demand or to keep a small inventory you want to make sure you're giving them the best possible file to work with.

Generally you want to work 125% to 150% larger.In some cases depending how it's being reproduced you might work larger.

do you want to aim for 300 dpi at the finished size because it will make a difference if it's less. The line screening, LPI is something totally different and that's dependent on the printers you're using. If you're unsure do a couple test illustrations at various resolutions and have some test glicees made.

[Adam Thornton 0]

@jimsz Thanks very much for that, Jim. All good stuff for me to know.

Just to confirm though, you suggest working at 125% to 150% larger. Do you mean 125% larger than the intended print is going to be? Do you include digital painting in this, or just traditional media? It's just because if I am intending on printing at A2 size (59cm x 42cm), that is already a massive digital canvas and would likely slow the processor. So painting even larger would be a struggle for my computer, and I'm using a 2021 Macbook Pro, so it is already good for digital painting. I'd be interested to hear your comments.

Thanks again for your help.

[lizardillo]

@adam-thornton-0 if you’ve got a 2021 MacBook Pro it should handle a large file no problem. Most of us can only dream of kit that new Remember to scale it up to the correct size when you send it.

300dpi is the magic number for printing, aim for that and you can’t go wrong. Plus make sure you are using the correct colour profiles.

…and as the ancient proverb says... Remember to add your bleed

Here’s two UK gilcee printers that have good reputations, I’ve linked to straight to the file upload help page for you:

https://www.theprintspace.co.uk/help/knowledge-base/how-to-prepare-your-file-for-print-upload/

https://beyondprint.co.uk/how-to-print/

[Melissa_Bailey]

@adam-thornton-0 simply put: yes, you want to create a canvas size at least as big as the largest print size, at 300 dpi. And yes, that means the file size will be huge.

And yes, as @jimsz recommends, it's best to size up 125-150% if you can do that. It will ensure the best quality possible for high quality prints. Your details will be super clear.

One other thing you might want to check with your printer: what color profile they prefer. Some printers require files in CMYK, some prefer RGB files to be submitted (which they then will convert to the color profile their printers use).

Keep in mind that print colors differ from digital colors. Digital colors are made up of light -- print colors are ink-based. Because of that, there are limitations to what colors the inks can produce, though most colors can be reproduced fairly true-to-color.

Hope this helps and hope your prints turn out beautifully!

[Adam Thornton 0]

@lizardillo Thanks very much, Liz. That's really helpful, and kind of you to include those specific links.

Interestingly, I've got the canvas size at 25x35cm and 600dpi, but there is still a noticeable amount of lag when I'm painting. It's a problem. Will do a bit of tinkering and see if I can sort that.

Re the kit: I do realise how lucky I am to have this computer. I had a 2014 Macbook Pro but that one died on me at the end of last year. Thank God I'd been backing it up regularly! So this new one was something of a unexpected purchase. If you can find someone who is a student or teacher then you can get good discounts. But it's still overpriced even with the money off!

[Adam Thornton 0]

@melissa_bailey Thanks very much for your reply Melissa. You've said a lot of useful things.

Strangely, even with this new Macbook Pro I'm experiencing a lot of lag on an A2-sized (59x42cm) canvas at 300dpi. I tried halving and thirding (is that a word?) the canvas and having 600dpi, but still there's lag. And the pen size on the canvas is too small. Maybe I'm doing something else wrong.

[Melissa_Bailey]

@adam-thornton-0 not knowing what program you're using or the specs of your computer, it might have something to do with the brush resolution or how much memory is being used by your drawing program.

Massive programs like Photoshop can lag even with new computers, depending on what you're doing and if the computer has adequate specifications to handle it.

Some of the default brushes that come with Photoshop are set at 72 dpi, so will work and look differently on a higher resolution canvas. Some artists always work at 72 dpi, then export as a JPEG or TIFF and convert that file to the correct size, dpi, and color profile for print. You can try resizing the canvas to 72 dpi and see if that helps with your brushes. You'll need to increase the canvas dimensions by at least 4x (168cm x 240 cm).

Not sure if any of that will help -- it's what other artists have said they do. An A2 size canvas is big, so I would expect that it takes a massive amount of memory to run.

[jimsz]

@adam-thornton-0 said in How much smaller can digital canvas size be compared to possible print size?:

@melissa_bailey Thanks very much for your reply Melissa. You've said a lot of useful things.

Strangely, even with this new Macbook Pro I'm experiencing a lot of lag on an A2-sized (59x42cm) canvas at 300dpi. I tried halving and thirding (is that a word?) the canvas and having 600dpi, but still there's lag. And the pen size on the canvas is too small. Maybe I'm doing something else wrong.

If you are reducing the size of the canvas in half but doubling the resolution, it is in essence the same size.If you're Macbook Pro is laggy it could be the processor chip (nothing you can do about that), the ram (get as much as you can afford) or the hard drive (SSD drives are much faster then spinning drives).

[Adam Thornton 0]

@jimsz Thanks very much, Jim. Sorry for my (long) delay in replying. It's a brand new Macbook Pro with Apple's new M1 processor chip, so I hope it's not the computer!

[Adam Thornton 0]

@melissa_bailey Hi Melissa,
Thanks very much for your help. Sorry it's taken so long for me to reply.
I hear what you say. But hope it's not the computer, as it's supposed to be able to cope with this. Perhaps it's the brushes. I use Krita software.
If I paint on a 72dpi canvas, how will that look good when I export/convert it? I know some programmes can up-res automatically for you, but they look blurry and horrible.
I'm wondering if perhaps I shouldn't aim for selling A2 prints now and come down to A3. But I can't believe this hasn't been done before outside vector art.

[jimsz]

@adam-thornton-0

The issue is not the computer it is the amount of pixels you are pushing around. No offense but too many artists do not grasp digital sizing and scaling.

Once you upsize an image, you lose quality and you can't get it back. Raster art is not vector art.

[Adam Thornton 0]

@jimsz Yes, I totally agree with you. No offence taken In fact, I'm one of those artists that do not grasp digital sizing, in relation to printing. It seems to be missing from a lot of art curriculums. All I keep seeing is that to be print-ready it needs to be 300dpi. I've actually found it quite difficult to find comprehensive information on this issue, so if you know of any online resources then I'd be very grateful to hear about them.

Thanks very much!