Digital Art - Publisher's Expectations

[Zak Arntson]

I'm looking into freelance illustration, and was wondering what publishers prefer/require in terms of digital art. Size of piece, dpi, RGB vs. CMYK, file format, that sort of thing.

[Matt Snyder]

I'm looking into freelance illustration, and was wondering what publishers prefer/require in terms of digital art. Size of piece, dpi, RGB vs. CMYK, file format, that sort of thing.

Zak, I'll give you some guidelines that I often require whether as publisher or freelance layout guy working w/ artists:

Size of the piece can vary, obviously. The trick here, if you're doing the digital thing, is differentiating between PRINT size and SCREEN size. This will vary because of an object's resolution. Obviously, if you're creating something for a print product, print size is more important. It's really up to the publisher, however, in determining what the size of an image should be, whether it be for screen/web or print.

DPI -- this one's pretty standard. For print products, you need to have a resolution of 300 DPI. Anything higher is typically a waste (UNLESS it's line art -- not grayscale -- in which case the resolution should be higher so the detail is finer on the one-color image). That said, depending on the image and/or reproduction size, sometimes you can cheat with something like 233 DPI or similar. Anything less than 150 DPI for print is bad, and you really should stick to the 300 if possible.

If, however, you're creating an image for something other than print -- like a PDF -- resolution can vary. Occasionally, it's better memory-wise to have, say, a 150 DPI image in a PDF so the final PDF isn't a huge beast of a download.

If you're going to print COLOR, you MUST go CMYK mode. This is important.

However, should you create images for digital release -- like web site or even PDF (which, even though it prints out, needn't be CMYK -- confusing, huh? I can be CMYK, and maybe should be.) -- RGB is often better. Not the least of all because it's generally better color quality, in my opinion. Certainly more vibrant.

Finally, file formats. By and large, go with TIFF format. This is useful for both print and PDF creations. JPG is also often acceptable (and it certainly keeps color and quality better than, say, GIF) for digital releases. Obviously so for Web images. Another less used but acceptable format for print is EPS (encapsulated post script). This is best for vectored art, like Adobe Illustrator for Macromedia Freehand files.

Phew! Well, hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions or if I've missed something. And to anyone else, if I've flubbed something up, let me know!

Later,
Matt

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I agree with everything Matt says, except that 600 dpi is best for me - it permits an illustration to be sized up if necessary during layout, and a little flexibility in the illustrations' sizes is a huge asset. Quite a few pics at 300 dpi have proven too fuzzy for people to deal with in final production.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

Gotta go with Ron on this one:
600dpi if you can manage it (you'll end up with huge files).
300dpi only if you have to, never less.
150dpi...only if you're looking into checking into a sanity hospital after you see the results of the print.

72dpi is fine for web display and PDF products not really meant for printing. You can go 150dpi for stuff, but I've found little reason to do so for screen images.

Remember, you can always scale down without quality loss, but scaling UP and retaining quality is another world of trouble.

What I often do is paint at 300, then up it to 600 and go over the image with a fine-tooth comb performing touch-ups and sharpening or blurring where necessary. For the stuff I usually do, if I didn't even my memory-loaded machine would choke and die on me.

Also, I paint everything at 300, even webstuff...that way I can scale down later for web use and still have a backup copy of the image at higher resolution in case I want to or need to do something with it in print.

[Jon H]

Hi all, I'm a long time lurker here at the Forge - I enjoy reading everything, but rarely have any 'signal' to add.  Just so yous can place me, I did the cover for Dust Devils, and I work full time as an illustrator for CCGs and RPGs.

Just about all the "bigger boys" require art at 300dpi, TIFF format.  Since they usually set the reproduction size before commissioning the art there's little need to provide files any larger in terms of dpi.  But naturally any individual company's mileage may vary.  The RPG business has very few standard practices!

A surprising amount of bigger publishers accept colour work in RGB (Games Workshop, AEG)- in fact they ask for it, as it makes their colour correction little more straight forward (I believe).  

If you're working digitally in colour its well worth checking the calibration of your monitor, and viewing the work on a few different screens - it can be surprising/shocking how different it can look on another monitor!

Hope that helps!

[Jake Norwood]

I'll add that a lot of folks that are planning to send something to press prefer CMYK.

Jake

[Zak Arntson]

Just wanted to say thanks to you all for your input! Right now I'm working on Paka's Mu project, and I'm doing the pieces in grayscale 300dpi. Hopefully that'll work.

[Drew Baker]

I'll typically do all my digital touching up for grayscale images at 450dpi (or 150% if I did the original that big), then I'll deliver them at 300 dpi, and if the publisher wants a bigger version they can ask.  

I've included these larger images on a couple of CDs delivered to publishers but for the most part they just get archived.  Of course, it's better to have them and not need them than not have them the time they're needed.


--Drew
http://drewbaker.com

[Bear with Blades]

I'm new to the forum, but I've been doing digital art for a long time now.  Here's a few thoughts.

ALWAYS keep an uncompressed original to work from.  If you're delivering JPEG formatted files for web-use, the last thing you want to do is alter and then re-save an existing JPEG.  The lossy compression scheme will kill your image dead.

As for print work, I tend to prefer working between 300 and 600 dpi, though since I handle the printing of my work myself, this rarely presents a problem since I know what I'm going for ahead of time.  It's usually a good idea to simply ask the client/printer if they have a preference, just to be safe.  It may make you feel a bit silly, but it beats delivering the wrong format or size.