Used to export 300 DPI JPEGs for everything until a print shop rejected my file last year

I thought I had it figured out. Five years of posting my digital paintings online, sharing them in forums, even sold a few prints through a local shop in Austin. Then this past February I took a commission for a gallery show in Dallas. The guy running the print shop calls me up and says 'hey, your file is only 150 DPI at the final print size, this is gonna look like garbage blown up past 16 inches.' I had no clue. I was just exporting from Procreate at the default settings. Now I always check the canvas dimensions first. I set it to 300 DPI minimum and 6000 pixels on the long side before I even start painting. Has anyone else gotten burned by assuming your files are print ready?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_eric5d ago

Switched to always working at 600 DPI after a gallery rejected my files for being too small. Now I just scale down if something needs a smaller output instead of trying to upscale later.

wilson.olivia5d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, that "always work at 600 DPI" thing from the_eric is SO smart. I used to be scared of working that large because I thought my iPad would lag or the file size would be too much. But honestly, modern devices handle it fine. I started doing the exact same thing after my Dallas rejection - I set my canvas to 600 DPI and a huge size like 8000 pixels on the long side. Then when I export for web or small prints I just scale down in Photoshop. It takes like two seconds. The real trick is that you can ALWAYS shrink a file without losing quality but you can never make it bigger without it looking fuzzy. So working at 600 DPI is future-proofing your work. You never know when someone is gonna want a massive 30 inch print of something you painted years ago. And scaling down from 600 to 300 is literally just a click. Way better than trying to upscale from 150 and getting that gross pixelated mess.

richard_young804d ago

Nah I get what you're saying but 600 DPI feels overkill most of the time. I've been doing 300 DPI for years and never had an issue even with big prints. Only time I've ever needed to upscale was once and some AI tool fixed it in seconds. Feels like a lot of extra file size for something that rarely happens.