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Participant
July 11, 2021
Answered

Illustrator Suddenly Exporting Smaller and Pixellated

  • July 11, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 655 views

Hey y'all, I'm having a weird issue here. I haven't changed anything about my process, now suddenly when I design something in Illustrator and go to export it, the resulting PNG file is smaller and very pixellated.

I always set my document up to the exact size I need, in this case 5.5" wide by 8.5" tall and I export with 72 ppi. I've done this hundreds of times and the resulting PNG has always been the same size as I designed it with crisp clean edges. Now today for some reason, I do the same process and when I export it, it's significantly smaller and already heavily pixellated at it's original size.

I even tried just starting a brand new file in case I did something weird, but it's still exporting like this. Take a look at the attached screenshot to see what I mean. In Illustrator I set the view to Actual Size and confirmed it's accurate, but when I open the exported PNG you can see it's smaller and pixellated.

When I export I usually either do File > Export As, select art boards, 72ppi for resolution and Type Optimized (Hinted). Or I go through the assets panel and export that way with the same settings. Both result in the same file all of the sudden. Any help would be appreciated, this is going to slow down my business a bunch if I can't figure it out quickly.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Mike_Gondek10189183

How many pixels did you get, open up in photoshop to check.  You should have 398 x 612px for 5.5" x 8.5" @ 72dpi.

How are you checking that your image is smaller?

3 replies

Participant
July 12, 2021

It looks like my older exports all did have that same amount of pixellation, it just showed up more with this one because of the angled lines so it shows up more and I just must have never noticed it before. #GoodToKnow

Bill Silbert
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 12, 2021

I downloaded your screenshot and looked at it in Photoshop. I don't see any significant pixelization until I blow it up to 200%. Even at 150% it still looks pretty good. Better than what I would expect a 72 ppi raster image to look like. The pixelization I see at 200% is what I would expect given that at 200% the image is at 37.5 ppi. I would suggest trying to export an image at 150 ppi or even 300 ppi just to see if pixelization still occurs with higher resolution on your computer. If it does then perhaps it is a problem with your monitor or even video card. 

Mike_Gondek10189183
Community Expert
Mike_Gondek10189183Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 11, 2021

How many pixels did you get, open up in photoshop to check.  You should have 398 x 612px for 5.5" x 8.5" @ 72dpi.

How are you checking that your image is smaller?

Participant
July 11, 2021

So by checking it in photoshop, it looks like it is 396x612, so not actually smaller. I just assumed it was smaller because of how pixellated it got.

 

So then the real question is why is it suddenly SO pixellated? Like I said I use these same export settings all the time and I've always had smooth edges and corners up until today.