Overheard someone at a gallery saying they "just use the default canvas size"

I was at the New Media Art Show in Portland last weekend and this artist was telling her friend she always works in 72 DPI at 500x500 pixels because "it doesn't matter." My jaw dropped. She had no idea that defaults can actually mess up how your piece looks on different screens or prints. Has anyone else run into artists who don't mess with their canvas settings?

3 comments

3 Comments

river1824d ago

Honestly, did she even consider how that looks scaled up on a gallery wall?

ray_webb63d ago

@hugo_ellis nailed it about scaling. A 500x500 square looks fine on a phone but put it on a 4 foot screen and you get a tiny stamp with fuzzy edges. If you're submitting to a gallery, check the specs they give you or at least ask what size the display is. Better yet, build in some breathing room around your composition so you can crop it later without cutting off something important.

hugo_ellis4d ago

Double down on what river182 said about scaling, because that 500x500 square is gonna look like a postage stamp on a 4 foot wall display. It gets even worse when you project digital art on a bigger screen and the pixels are so chunky they look like they're from a retro game. Defaults are fine for thumbnails or social media stories, but gallery work needs some basic planning around the actual viewing space.