PSA: Found out my "high res" art files were actually downscaled without me knowing

I was getting ready to submit to an online gallery last month and decided to check my export settings on Photoshop. Turned out the default save-for-web option had been compressing my 300 DPI pieces down to 72 DPI for the last 6 months. Lost a ton of detail on my brush work and didn't even realize it. Has anyone else caught their software doing sneaky stuff like this with their files?

2 comments

2 Comments

xena_rivera631mo ago

Hang on, that's not REALLY what's happening with save-for-web. The DPI setting in that export is just a metadata tag, it doesn't actually downsample your pixel dimensions. Check the physical pixel sizes of your original vs the export - your brush detail should be the same, the file is just telling the printer "hey, I'm 72 dots per inch now" so it thinks it should print smaller. The real loss in detail comes from the compression quality slider, not the DPI.

the_michael1mo ago

And another thing nobody's bringing up is that "Save for Web" actually strips color profiles on purpose, which can make your brush strokes look different depending on the monitor. That metadata removal changes how the colors render even if the pixel dimensions stay the same. So you might be losing perceived detail just from the color shift, not the resolution.