Sark

Hi all.

I've decided to create an avatar. Does anyone have any opinions on a good working image size to use to enable reasonable results when scaling down to the appropriate size.

I'm guessing that a softer working image is required to achieve a good downsample? Or, are you all creating the images at the final scale?

Any advice/tips would be much appreciated.

Sark

The Coach

Work at the size of the avatar (best solution, but hard) or work with a bigger size. But what looks pretty when it's bigger, may look crappy when you resize it, because lots and lots of pixels will be thrown away or resampled, especially when you know that the avatar is only going to be 75x75 pixels (and that's not a whole lot). When you do plan to resize, use bicubic sharper as interpolation and you might even consider to slightly sharpen the final result.
I would sure not start with something bigger than let's say 200x200, but that's just my opinion.

That reminds me... I need a new avatar again (just got rid of the Halloween one)

tfoster

If you're uncomfortable working at the reduced size of the final avatar, you can always set up the file at the final size (50 x 50 or whatever), and magnify it so it's comfy to work at. Then go to Window > Document > New Window to open another view of your art in a separate window. You can size this window to the actual size of the avatar but work in the magnified view. This way you can not only work in a larger space but you'll also be able to see your changes in real time at the actual size-saves a lot of going back and forth...
Are you intending to animate your avatar?

Sark

JoeD. That's what I discovered. Downsampling produces very poor results.

Tim. Great idea. I'd never thought of that as a use for a new window. Didn't even know you could do that.

Thanks for the replies.

Sark

Welles

I've always worked at 150 X 150 so I'm downsampling exactly 50% but I really like tfoster's suggestion. [righton] I've never gotten into the habit of multiple views but always like the idea each time I read about it.