Reccomended Resolution

Tomsde

I've been working on my own deck for the past few weeks and I am creating them to fit on a 2-3/4 in. x 4-3/4 in Tarot card at a resolution of 300 ppi. I didn't know if I should create them in a larger size than that, I figured I can upsample them some if they need to be bigger. What do you guys do and what do you reccomend? I hope to have these published some day, so if I need to be doing them bigger than that I should start doing so before I get too far.
 

DraagonStorm

I self-publish my decks, so not sure what a publisher will say... But 300 dpi is what I save my files at.

DraagonStorm
 

Sidhe-Ra

I save mine at 600 dpi, because I have been asked for up to that by publishers before. You cannot effectively increase the resolution once you've saved it at a lower level- it reduces quality.

Good luck!

Em x
 

blue_fusion

just as an example: the usg submissions site says twice (or higher than) the original size is preferred.
 

Tomsde

Thanks for the advice, from this point on I will double the size that I have been working at. Ultimately Shidi-Ra you are right, upsampling is not optimal as far as image quality is concerned, so it is better to work larger. As for the cards that I've already produced, I did some experimenting last night and can get away with doubling their size without a noticeable degradation of image quality, but I can re-create those 7 images if need be when the time comes if need be if they weren't up to par. The new Photoshop does better than even with these enlargement algo rythms--layers can also be converted to smart objects that are more resistant to resizing.
 

baba-prague

Yes, just throwing in my agreement with everyone else. We work at between 450 dpi and 600 dpi. It depends a bit on how large the final cards will be printed and how much detail there is.
 

Tomsde

Thank you all so much for your advice. Actually I should have known better from my own past experience. Some things that I'd done for the web were wanted by magazines at a larger size--my earliest work was only at screen resolution and not sufficeint to make a decent print out of. I usually render my images at a much larger size now, just in case in the future I want to make prints or sell them.

I figure doubling the resolution will give the most flexibility without going too far the other way and creating poster sized images.
 

Moonboy

I did Deviant Moon at 450dpi, and USG works at 300