Low resolution quality on illustrations

You wrote:

I sent the jpeg to me via iMessage

Then one thing to check is your phone’s image quality setting for sending images in Messages.

On your iPhone:

1. Open Settings, tap apps, tap Messages. (Look for Messages, not iMessage; Apple hasn't called it iMessage in years.)
2. Scroll down until you see the setting Send Low Quality Photo Previews. If it’s on, turn it off.

That means another way that might send full quality is to send the images from Messages on a Mac instead of on the iPhone, because I don’t see that option in Messages for Mac.

Also, notice that it says “Send a lower quality preview before the full quality photo. Only the preview will be sent in Low Data Mode.” That sounds like if you had waited a little longer, it might have loaded the full quality preview eventually.

All of this is related to Apple trying to get your images to show up faster on other peoples’ phones even when their mobile Internet connection is poor quality.

Some other answers in this thread are assuming that the size was created by Photoshop. But if the size was automatically limited by a setting in iOS, then it wouldn't matter how high you set the resolution in Photoshop.

There is a similar situation in macOS, where Apple Mail may be set to limit resolution of attached images, to speed up delivery and take up less space on servers when people send unnecessarily large images through email. To send images unaltered, again you have to make sure Mail is not set to downsample images.

Hi Taylor — thanks, that explains it. 360 × 504 px is quite small: an iPhone screen is roughly 1000+ px wide, so when the image is shown full-screen it has to be stretched, and it will look soft. That's the main cause — iMessage may compress it a bit more, but the size is the bigger factor.

Yes, you can enlarge it: go to Image > Image Size, make sure Resample is turned on, and set the width to around 2000 px (the height will follow). Choose the 'Preserve Details 2.0' resampling option for the cleanest result, then export again.

One honest note: enlarging won't add detail that isn't there, so it will still be a little softer than an illustration made at full size. For the sharpest result going forward, it's best to create the illustration at the size you'll share it (for example, 2000 px or more on the long edge) and export from that.

Hope that helps!

Pixel dimensions 360 px 504 px -is there a way to adjust this?

I sent the jpeg to me via iMessage 

Hi Taylor,

A few things determine how sharp an illustration looks on a phone screen:

1. Pixel dimensions matter most — a phone screen shows pixels, not print resolution. Check Image > Image Size and make sure the file has enough pixels for how large it will be viewed (for example, at least 2000 px on the long edge for sharing online).

2. Export a clean copy with File > Export > Export As. For crisp illustrations, PNG keeps edges sharp; if you use JPEG, keep the quality high.

3. How the file gets to the phone matters too — sending it through a messaging app or social media often recompresses it. Try viewing the exported file directly (for example, via AirDrop or saving it to Photos) and compare.

If you can share the pixel dimensions and how you export and transfer the file, I can help narrow it down. Hope this helps!