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This article covers the best canvas size and resolution for digital art. Choosing the best canvas size and resolution might not be easy when you have a certain project in front of you, and you want to get the best quality out of your art software. A large canvas size, like 3000 x 7000 px with 300 PPI (pixels per inch), will give you good results overall. Let’s explore the topic a bit more!
Canvas size refers to the dimensions of the digital workspace or the digital canvas you have when you start a new drawing in an art software like Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, or Adobe Photoshop.
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Resolution refers to the number of pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi) in an image. A high-resolution image will have more pixels or dots per inch and creates a clearer and sharper image. Low-resolution images may appear blurry or pixelated when printed or viewed at a larger size.
When creating digital art, it’s important to consider the final use or output of the artwork and choose a canvas size and resolution that will allow for clear and high-quality printing or display.
The best canvas size for digital art depends on the intended use or output of the artwork. A good starting point is to use 3000 x 7000 px canvas size at 300 PPI resolution for digital art.
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For digital illustrations or graphics that will be used for web or screen display, a canvas size of 72 ppi and a size of 800-1200 pixels is good enough.
For digital art that will be printed, a higher resolution of 300 ppi or more is recommended. The canvas size will depend on the desired final print size, with larger print sizes requiring larger canvas sizes. For example, a digital art print that will be 8″ x 10″ at 300 ppi would need a canvas size of 2400 x 3000 pixels.
It’s important to remember that larger canvas sizes will require more RAM (random access memory) and processing power, so it’s important to consider the capabilities of your computer or device when choosing a canvas size for digital art.
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As a general rule, a higher resolution is better for printing as it allows for more detail and clarity. Higher resolution images create larger file sizes, so take this into account when creating digital art in high resolution.
For printable digital art, a resolution of 300 pixels per inch (PPI) is considered the best resolution to have. This is the standard resolution for high-quality printing and will produce excellent results for most purposes.
For web use, 72 PPI is often used as the standard resolution. This is because, in web use, you don’t need the extra sharpness present in 300 PPI images. 72 PPI images also load faster as the pixel density is lower.
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Working higher than 300 PPI resolution rarely brings noticeable differences to the sharpness or quality of the final artwork. 300 – 400 PPI tends to be a good range to work in.
Current art software like Adobe Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint enables you to work on very high pixel sizes (30000 x 30000 px), so you usually don’t have to worry about art software not having enough pixels for you.
It’s important to know that the bigger resolution and canvas size you have, the more RAM (random access memory) is required from your computer. The speed of the RAM does not have as big of an impact as does the amount of RAM you have.
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32-64GB of RAM is enough for creating high-quality and high-resolution digital art. Having more than 64GB of RAM always helps, but most laptops or tablets don’t yet have more than 64GB.
If you use desktop PC, then you can have more than 64GB of RAM, as the only limitations come from the motherboard and CPU you have.
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The desktop versions have unlimited canvas sizes, limited only by your computer memory. The mobile apps have capped sizes, due to the limited memory (RAM) in phones and tablets.
Pixels are the units of the internet. Every image on your screen is made up out of many, many little pixel dots, and this is what you are‘painting’ with.
Every digital image contains a specific number of pixels, and the size of your canvas is literally just picking how many pixels you want to start with. The bigger your image, the more detail you can add, and the larger you can print. However, you don’t actually need a very large canvas size if you just want to share your work online. However, the bigger your image, the more memory it uses and the slower things might get (this is why the mobile apps have capped canvas sizes).
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Print size is an estimate based on your pixel size (the ‘real’ size of the image) and the ‘Pixels/Inch’ measurement (also known as DPI/PPI), which tells the printer how detailed the final image should be. But you don’t need to worry about that unless you are trying to get a really specific printing result.
Do you need to print it? Calculate the largest size and exact aspect ratio that you’ll need and use that so you don’t have to worry going forward.
I’m serious about the aspect ratio, by the way; you can usually fudge the print quality a bit (paintings are blurrier that photos by default so you don’t need to be as picky), but if your actual width:length ratio is wrong? You may have to make some painful cropping decisions as most print places only carry a specific range of paper sizes.
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Don’t forget to untick‘Preserve Aspect Ratio’ as that will force your width and height to stay the same relative sizes, so you’ll be stuck in an endless update loop.
Does it need to be high quality and detailed? Probably 5000-15, 000. You’ll need to figure this out as you go, but you can resize your canvas as you work, and you may find you don’t like working at large sizes (as it affect tool size and computer speed).
Or is it just a quick sketchy image for the internet or a lowish quality web graphic? Pick a smallish basic size between 1000-4000 pixels and don’t worry about it. You can go even smaller, but usually you don’t need to.
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I generally draw web graphics at twice their final size, which gives me some flexibility if I want to crop it or change the aspect ratio and means I don’t have to worry about quality loss for the fine details.
Bigger is always safer, as you can scale down as needed, but you might not like working at large sizes, so it’s a personal decision. I usually work at around 3000-5000 pixels a side, unless I know I will need a larger image for a specific result (e.g. I can make a small poster out of that, but the quality might not be great. On the other hand, I regularly sold A3 posters and even created an A2 poster out of a 3000 pixel image once and they sold just fine!).
If you are uploading your work to an online print on
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