Love Ink , l.l.c.

The BASICS

 of digital art

First, let’s talk about Resolution.           [ Screen/Web graphics: 72 dpi ]  =  [ General use: 150 dpi ]  =  [ Print quality 300 dpi ]

Resolution is how we describe how many dots the computer puts in an area.  The term is Dots Per Inch, or dpi.
A typical screen only has 72 lights per inch of screen, so showing an image with any more detail than this is overkill.  For Website Graphics, things only seen on a screen, 72 dpi is standard.
A general resolution for a printable piece or work is 150 (or 144) dpi.  This puts 150 dots per inch into the printout, giving you cleaner edges and a decent output.

The minimum Resolution for a Printed Graphic for professional use is 300 dpi.  I think printers can only put this much accuracy into the act of printing, so matching your image resolution to the abilities of the printer gives the best results. 

__More information on Resolution
You are free, of course, to go as high as 600 or 1200 dpi, but this is really overkill.  If you think you might resize your image, then using the higher resolution can allow for scaling without losing the definition of the lines.  A 1 inch square created at 1200 dpi can be enlarged to a 4 inch square, printed at 300 dpi without losing any crispness.  1200:300, a 4:1 scale.  As you go beyond the resolution of your image, you will begin to get the pixelation that we all hate, your lines will become blurry, jaggedy, ugly things.  But if you are blowing up a 1 square foot image (1200dpi) to a 10 square foot printed banner, it’s going to be so huge that the jaggedy edges will be more acceptable because you’re supposed to be standing far enough away that you can’t make out the pixels.  But if you blew up the same 1 square foot image with a 150 dpi resolution to a 10 square foot banner, it would produce large blocky squares that would be visible at a distance..

“Why would I ever work at less than 1200 dpi ??” you ask?   File Size.  
The more dots to track, the larger the file size becomes.  Working with larger file sizes takes more computing power and it takes your computer longer to process actions on the canvas as you work and big files take up more space on your hard drive.  
Websites have limits on file size uploads.  Even online professional printers will have a maximum file size allowed.  
There are limits to technology.
It would take forever to upload a12 GB image to print on a coffee mug.  And in the end it would look exactly the same as a 250 kb image at 300 dpi once they were physically printed on the mug.

Now let's talk about File Type.          .clip          .jpg          .png          .tif          .gif

FileName.clip   The native file type that Clip Studio Paint saves your work in. 
Nothing else will use thei file type.  It hnolds all the information regarding layers, colors, shapes, filters- everything that digitally describes your file.

FileName.jpg   The native file type that Clip Studio Paint saves your work in. 
JPEG or JPG is a commonly used method of lossy (becomes blocky, indistinct) compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable trade-off between storage size and image quality.

FileName.gif   ​A lossless format for image files that supports both animated and static images.
Essentially, every program that can view a digital image file can open and view this file.  Editing it is another story, typically, only the first frame of an animated gif comes up in a normal graphics editing program, so the animation is lost.

FileName.png   A very compact way to store a digital image file. 
A PNG file is a Portable Network Graphics file. The format uses lossless compression and is generally considered the replacement to the GIF image format. However, unlike GIF, PNG files do not support animations.

FileName.tif   A common format for digitally storing photos. 
The actual abbreviation TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. The format was developed by Aldus (which has since been acquired by Adobe Systems) in the mid-80s as an attempt to create a universal standard for desktop scanners. It has now expanded to being the premier image storage format.

Now let's talk about Layer Types.                                                                              Raster vs Vector

You can tell a Raster layer from a Vector layer by the Cube in the layer name box. ^

Raster Layer  A Raster Layer or Razsterized Layer is a layer that is made up of pixels.  It's all dots.  If you zoom in far enough, or enlarge a raster image enough, you will see the dots, or the image becomes "Pixelated".

The small green circle was drawn on a Raster Layer.
That layer was then duplicated and Enlarged.  
The jagged edges of the larger circle are referred to as "Pixelation", as you can see the pixels.

Vector Layer   A Vector Layer is a layer described by MATH.  There are points, lines and curves, all mathematically defined.
One benefit of a Raster layer is that your lines can be enlarged, essentially infinitely, without pixelating.  Unfortunately, CSP doesn't describe Fills mathematically like Adobe Illustrator does, so while your LineArt will be infinitely scaleable, the coloring, shading and Raster elements will pixelate.
Another benefit of a Vector line is the ability to adjust and nudge it after it's been made.  You can shift a point, add or delete points, you can make the line thinner or fatter to achieve shading effects, like Pen Pressure resulting in a line of differeing thicknesses.

The small black circle outline was drawn on a Vector Layer.
That layer was then duplicated and Enlarged.  The edges of the larger circle remain crisp and clean.

The small red circle outline was drawn on a Vector Layer and the Points of the line are visible.
By Using the "Correct Line" Tool, I was able to thicken the line gradually to make the top thin and the bottom thick, giving the illusion of volume to the shape.