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Just found out most digital art showcase sites compress images way harder than I thought
I was uploading some of my recent pieces to a new portfolio site last night, and I noticed the file sizes shrank like crazy. So I did a quick test with a 3000px wide painting at 300 DPI. The original was 12MB, and the site compressed it down to under 1MB without telling me. I compared the two side by side on my monitor and the difference in color banding was obvious once I zoomed in. Has anyone else caught their favorite showcase platform doing this without a warning?
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hayden_rodriguez20d ago
That 300 DPI thing is a total myth for digital display anyway since monitors only show 72-96 DPI, but 12MB down to 1MB is brutal. I caught ArtStation doing something similar last year with my 4000px landscapes, the gradient in the sky turned into straight up stripes. The worst part is they don't even give you a little badge or popup saying "hey we squished your file", you just have to accidentally notice it one day. I started keeping backup TIFFs on Google Drive just so I can prove to clients what the real quality looks like when they ask.
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Isn't the real issue that we're paying for premium storage that gets secretly downgraded?
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