Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Best Pixels / inch, Canvas, & Page length/width settings to not have Artrage crash?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    3

    Question Best Pixels / inch, Canvas, & Page length/width settings to not have Artrage crash?

    Version of ArtRage: 4
    Windows 10

    I'm not sure if this is necessarily at technical problem, but when I begin drawing a picture, I can never get enough detail in it. I'll be drawing something, and then I'll zoom in to make a portion of the picture a bit more detailed. However, it just comes out fuzzy. I figured that increasing the pixels per inch would solve this problem. But when I try to increase the pixels by inch portion to allow for more detail, the program crashes.

    So, I guess what I'm asking is (for anyone and everyone who can help) what is the best canvas, page length/width, and pixels per inch to allow for a decent bit of detail without the program crashing all together? Or if you don't know at what point it will start crashing, then what are your guys' favorite settings to use in general?

    Thanks for anyone who can help.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    3,402
    I don't usually go larger that this - not because of crashes, just personal preference. I also go quite small, 800x660 300ppi. I've never had any crashes even tho I have chosen a larger canvas at times.

    Name:  canvas size.jpg
Views: 1175
Size:  18.5 KB
    June.

    Oh God of homeless things, look down
    And try to ease the way
    Of all the little weary paws
    That walk the world
    today.
    -
    Unknown.

    http://enug66.deviantart.com/gallery/

    [My setup: hp 15in laptop,11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz 2.70 GHz, 8.00 GB RAM, 24in Acer 2nd monitor, Huion Kamvas 20 Pro display tablet, Windows 11, ArtRage Vitae.
    My painting real-estate is extended across three monitors.]

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Posts
    2,223
    Hello Chibimii and welcome to the ArtRage forums
    This is a tricky one to give any definitive answers to

    Whilst a painting is still “inside” ArtRage (or any other paint program) PPI is irrelevant, as there are no inches inside a computer!
    However canvas pixel dimensions are important as you need to have enough pixels to meet your viewing/rendering intent for the finished work, i.e. for print close up (book), print close to near (wall picture), print faraway (poster/billboard) or web based viewing.

    Perhaps if you could tell us what your current canvas settings are and what your viewing/rendering intent is that might help narrow things down. But it will always come down to what works best for you and your art.

    In the real world I always favoured A3 as a drawing size and still find myself setting up canvases in AR more or less to the digital equivalent, approx 4950px x 3510px. Assuming 300px per inch when printing, that will print out in the real world to A3 with no loss of detail.
    (Also from a practical view point I find that on my computer things can start to lag too much for my liking with canvas size above 5000px squared.)

    You may want to have a look at this site which has some useful general information about what is needed pixel wise in digital art and when and where it matters: http://www.tutortanith.com/imagesizing2.htm

    If printing is your intent then knowing how to set your zoom level to see your painting on screen 1:1 as you work can be very helpful.
    Divide your screen’s native resolution by your canvas ppi = screen zoom level.
    Examples based on my 15.4” screen:
    Screen resolution 129px / canvas ppi 300px = 0.430. 1:1 Zoom level is 43%
    Screen resolution 129px / canvas ppi 72px = 1.791. 1:1 Zoom level is 179%
    If you don’t know your screens resolution then this web based utility will tell what it is: http://pxcalc.com/
    (Note, this site calls it DPI but in reality it is telling you the PPI)
    Last edited by markw; 09-25-2016 at 12:07 PM. Reason: Fixed a significant typo
    Maker Of Replica Macoys

    Techie Stuff:
    ArtRage Vitae 7.1.4 ~ 15" Macbook Pro
    ~ macOS 10.15.7 ~ 4 Core i7 3.1GHz CPU ~ 16GB RAM ~ Wacom Intuos4 M
    My Animal Paintings In The Forum Gallery
    On Instagram

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    3
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Latest Drawing.png 
Views:	246 
Size:	396.6 KB 
ID:	90813

    I'm doing this drawing it's 1000 pixels per inch, and it's the size of a piece of a sheet of computer paper. It's perfect for getting the detail I want, but it keeps crashing at this level, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to do parts over. I've gotten in the habit of saving every 3mins or so... But still. It shouldn't do that right? Is it my paper size making it crash? Or the pixels? It never crashes with smaller sizes. So I'm not sure what to do. The biggest problem is I need higher pixels because I want a detailed background to this (which I haven't drawn yet). I don't thinking 300 ppi is going to be enough for this drawing with the background as well, but 1000 ppi makes it crash a lot.
    Last edited by Chibimii; 09-25-2016 at 11:57 AM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Posts
    2,223
    Hello again
    It’s late here so this post will just be a quick one for now.

    Crashing in general is not a problem I’ve ever found using AR but as everyones system specs differ your file may just be asking more from your computer than it can give.

    What size in pixels is your picture, Width x Hight ?
    What is your final viewing/rendering intent for the image ?
    Maker Of Replica Macoys

    Techie Stuff:
    ArtRage Vitae 7.1.4 ~ 15" Macbook Pro
    ~ macOS 10.15.7 ~ 4 Core i7 3.1GHz CPU ~ 16GB RAM ~ Wacom Intuos4 M
    My Animal Paintings In The Forum Gallery
    On Instagram

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Posts
    1,993
    Canvas Size

    Okay, 1000 PPI is insanely high, so it sounds like you're creating an *incredibly* large canvas, which is probably using up all the available memory on your computer and killing ArtRage.

    ArtRage lets you automatically calculate your pixel canvas size by changing the PPI and 'real world' measurements, so it sounds like you're doing that. Go back to the canvas size menu and go back and forth between the 'Screen Size' and the 'Pixel Size' tabs to see what happens to the numbers when you change things.

    Now, 1000 PPI x 21cm (length of a piece of A4 paper - check this is actually what you have!) is about 8000 pixels in length. This isn't actually ridiculously large - I can get up to 15,000 fairly easily on my computer, and we've heard of people working larger - but it DOES depend on your computer's available memory (RAM). You can check how much memory ArtRage is using in your task manager.

    As people have posted above, however, PPI also doesn't mean anything until you go to print, it's pixels per printed inch, not pixels per inch of screen - at which point, 150 is usually more than enough, 300 for really high quality art printing. What you're seeing when you zoom in and out is the *pixels* from the 'Screen Size' tab. Basically, if you're not specifically planning stuff for specific print results, ignore PPI/DPI and just make sure your canvas pixel size is big enough for what you want to do - this will also usually be more than enough for printing later.


    Crashes:

    If you're seeing crashes while you work, then you're probably doing things that are using up a lot of extra memory or you have a very low power computer OR something else entirely is going on that's nothing to do with your canvas size (but if you're not seeing crashes at smaller sizes, that's probably not it).

    It looks like you're using the palette knife - the 'soft' (V shaped) mode is very memory intensive, so that might be causing problems. The other modes should be fine. Lots of layers, watercolor and transform all use a fair bit of memory as well. (Tip: there's a Blur Layer option in the Edit menu).


    So, stuff that might help:


    1. Check what your actual canvas size is in pixels. If it's over 9000 ( ), then it's probably just too big.
    2. Check how much RAM ArtRage is using. If you're pushing close to the available memory limits, that's probably a warning sign. Also check and see if you have any other programs running that are sucking up memory!
    3. Check which tools/settings you're using in case they're triggering crashes by using too much memory (or something else).


    If you definitely still need giant canvases:

    1. Go to Edit > ArtRage Preferences > Advanced Preferences and enable the 'back up save' option. This won't autosave your changes, but it WILL create a backup file from your previous save. If ArtRage is crashing a lot, there's a higher chance that your painting file may get corrupted at some point, and this will give you a fallback file.

    2. Consider drawing on much smaller canvases and turn on 'Record Script' from the File menu. You can then play it back at a much larger size later.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    3
    I made it to be just slightly smaller than the size of a piece of computer paper, because that's the size I want it to be when I print it. I always go to the inches section instead of the number of pixels.

    I'm gonna try and start this drawing over with the suggested ppi of 300 and see how that works.

    I doubt it's my computer, because my laptop is less than a year old. So their isn't a lot on it aside from the music I transferred over from my old computer.

    I'll give this a shot.

    Thanks everyone.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •