Showerthought: I was saving my digital art at 72 DPI for years because I thought it was 'standard' for screens. A client asked for a print file last month and my whole portfolio looked like a blurry mess.

3 comments

3 Comments

The classic "screen resolution is fine for everything" trap. I did the same thing with my first batch of t-shirt designs, which came out looking like someone smeared Vaseline on the monitor.

carter.julia3mo ago

Feel that pain, I did the same thing with some poster designs. Start saving everything at 300 DPI for print from now on, even if you think it's just for online. I had to go back and redo a ton of old work like @dixon.daniel said, and it's a huge headache. For new pieces, just make your canvas size bigger with the higher DPI before you even start sketching. It saves you from the blurry mess later when someone wants a physical copy.

olivias881mo ago

Yeesh, I gotta be honest I think y'all are overthinking this a bit lol. I do like 90% of my stuff at 150 DPI and nobody has ever said anything looks blurry or weird. Unless you're doing like gallery prints or something most people can't even tell the difference. Maybe I just got lucky but I've been freelancing for years and never had a client complain about resolution.