When you are setting out to draw a new strip and you open up the graphics program of your choice, what size, shape, and resolution do you choose when creating a New image?

Or do you make a composite of several smaller images?

Regardless, one large page or several smaller ones set into a large on later, how do you decide on the right size and resolution?

Is there a balance between file size and graininess?

I have been doing my strip at 3200 width and a resolution of 300 (I change the height of the image depending on the strip). Once I have drawn a strip, I then shrink it down to 800 width.

Is there a better way? Would an 800 pixel width with a higher resolution look smoother? perform better?

Again, what do you do?

I start out at 1242x1752 - the numbers look a bit random, I know, but back when I was still working on paper and scanning my pencils for digital inking/colour, 1242x1752 is what it came out as, and it works, so I've kept it up.

300 dpi, of course, though my earlier pages were 150 dpi. I resize it to 709x1000 pixels once I'm done - it's a comfortable size to read, without the text appearing too small. Sometimes, there's a bit of graininess, but not a whole lot.

I draw my books within a comicbook scale page, sized down to fit on an 8.5 X 11 page, close to the same size it'll print at. I do this because time equals money, & the bigger the area to illustrate, the more time it'll take to illustrate. Plus, I can achieve all the detail I want at that size.

I scan all P&I's at 600 dpi, and work on them at that size. I want to have plenty of wriggle room as far as the size & quality that the pages will some day (hopefully) see print.

I lower the dpi to 100, & slightly downsize the page before posting it on the web.

Later,
Chip

I normally work in composites and scan the seperate elements and then copy/paste those elements into a blank canvas. The page size at this time 1800 x 2400. I pretty much have the layout in my head but sometimes I sketch it out a bit first then work from that. From there I work the pencils inking and coloring digitally with my handy dandy MS Paint program. Then when its done to my satisfaction I shrink the page by 50% so that the page size is as you can guess, 900 x 1200.

and that is how TheMidge28 makes a page.

Now if I can do it, you can too!
*TheMidge stands with a thumbs up and wink*

I draw on computer paper to keep my pages in a binder for my friends to read. When I scan pages, they usually end up around 1150 x 1610 pixels (more or less). After I clean them up, change to digital font, and add effects and color, I resize to 600 pixels wide for my webpage (usually around 800-some pixels long). For most pages, I compress to 50 colors saved as PNG. For pages with gradients or color, I save as a high quality jpeg.

(I found that size looks good for my pages and fits in with my site layout. I tested my website in different screen resolutions.)

Make sure you make all your changes, coloring, etc. before reducing size. And don't change the file type or reduce color depth until after you resize.

I draw on A4 sized paper trying to leave off about 1cm on each side (since it would come out too wide after scaling it down to american comic book size... or I'd have empty stripes on top/bottom of the page, scan it at 600dpi, then dump the page into my template and resize it + add a layer with panel borders on top of that.

The template is (at least I hope it is) exact proportions for printing, including the trim area that gets cut off (important, since I use bleeds from time to time) and it's at 400dpi. This gives me a resolution of 2750x4175.

After I'm done with coloring and lettering, I save the original an then flatten and resize it to 790x1200, which is not too wide and at the same time gives quite clearly readable text (nothing worse than too tiny fonts, it's enough that I stare at the screen most of the day, I don't need to strain my eyes any extra).

If I was working on something more "manga oriented" images would be of course smaller and the font larger.

I use a couple different methods. I usually draw them out on an 8x10 illustration board, then scan them into the computer at 300 dpi so that they come out at about 3000x2400 and then shrink them down to 600 pixels wide still at 300 dpi. I've found that those sizes usually appear on the monitor at about the same level of detail. Occasionally on more complex pieces I scan them in several pieces and then put them together at whatever size gives me the right spacing and layout then shrink them to the 600 pixels.

Iv'e got to try some of these techniques. I scan at 600 DPI, and then adjust pixels to 100......this shrinks it axactly the size I want. then, I adjust levels, and do my grey fills.

JustNoPoint