Pixelation

[jonk80455617]

Why is a watercolor painting so pixelated in Fresco? In intuitive, exemplary simple, realistic - and so missed Sketch that was not the case. The magic of painting in Sketch all gone in Fresco, at least for me - not only by the pixelation but also by the behaviour of the watercolor brushes. But now when Sketch is soon terminated nothing else to do then to try once again with Fresco. However, it would be o great help if there was a way of getting the same antialiasing effect in Fresco as in Sketch - also if there was a way to import the Sketch default watercolor brushes to fresco - is there? Many thanks in advance for any answer solving or at least explaining these things

[Michael J. Hoffman · Accepted solution]

Hi @jonk80455617 ,

Fresco (like Photoshop) works on pixel-based images. This means that if you zoom in far enough to see the pixels themselves, everything will be pixelated. This happens for everything from low resolution thumbnails all the way to the highest resolution, gigapixel images - if you zoom to a level where you can see pixels, you will see that the pixels are square, and you'll see anything with a curved edge displaying a jagged profile.

What you need is to consider where and how your image will be seen, and ensure that your image is high enough resolution that it can be displayed at 100% zoom or less in the final application. For example, if you want to print your artwork, plan your image for the final printed size. If you want 16"x20" artwork, you might choose 200 pixels per inch for printing (or more), which means that your document should be 3200 x 4000 pixels in size.

The same goes for calculating if you want to view it on screen, calculate the screen size and use that to decide how large to make your document.

In that 3200 x 4000 document, if you zoom to 500% view, you are still going to see pixels. But in real life viewing or printing at normal document sizes, you will never see that.

I hope that helps.

[jonk80455617]

Hi Michael!

Thank you for your instructive and prompt answer.

I usually use an A3 canvas at 300 ppi - to be sure:) As I did in Sketch. I suppose that Sketch also worked with pixel-based images, still - even if I enlarged to maximum 400 % - I couldn’t see any pixels in Sketch. However, with the same resolution of the canvas, the pixels are all over at 400 % magnification in Fresco - how come?

Best,

Jon