Resizing sprites and Vector lineart help

[roankun]

So uuuhhh... I've made my sprites in SAI at 1600x1900 res. What I do is save it as a PSD, open it in PS then save it as PNG to have transparent BG. And THEN, I resize that PNG with bicubic sharper to something with a height of 700. When I try to resize it first before saving as PNG, the results are horrible.

...Now, my problem is that my lineart is quite as sharp as I want it to be. Is there any way around this? Or... should I ... redo the whole lineart... with vectors..? I tried to do that once before, but I can't quite grasp the concept of paths.

Someone, please answer.... I knew I should have tried it out before drawing more... If I have to redo this whole thing in vector, then please tell me soon. I've already made 5 whole sprites and I shudder at the thought of having to redo them all in vectors.

[netravelr]

How about you bring the image into Illustrator and then see what it does with it's vectorizing image. If its as large as you say, it wouldn't really degrade the image too badly. If you posted an example of your art I'd be glad to show you what I could do with it in 2-3 seconds.

[roankun]

Hmm... it's still kinda a secret project for now, so I'd really rather not show anything yet. (And I probably won't until I've got it 50% done so it'll actually see completion.)

And I don't have Illustrator (I think). At least, I've never used it before, but I'll go look it up.
btw, If I vectorize the image, that means I do it from scratch again, right? (Or is there some sort of function that automatically turns the lineart layer into vectors? XP

[netravelr]

So assuming it's lineart and you haven't colored it in yet you should be fine. It can convert something from a black and white image into a vector version. Granted, at small sizes it can have problems with adding curves where it shouldn't have them, but it can save you some time. If you want, feel free to PM me. The nice thing about vector graphics is that once it's made you can resize it to whatever you want without loosing clarity, but it can often be hard to get exactly the look you want (especially with texture without gradients). Anyways, hope this helps!

[Kingv]

I know you stated that your canvas size is 1600x1900, but what resolution are you drawing at? Perhaps you're drawing at one that's low. I got decent results at 200 DPI but it didn't turn out so well at 72. When I tried to duplicate the issue you're having in Photoshop and my image turned out just fine in. I was able to scale the image down to 589x700 and save in PNG format without any detail loss.

[AxemRed]

I know you stated that your canvas size is 1600x1900, but what resolution are you drawing at? Perhaps you're drawing at one that's low. I got decent results at 200 DPI but it didn't turn out so well at 72.

That doesn't make any sense, DPI is only used for printing.

[Kingv]

My mistake, I meant resolution.

[roankun]

Now you've got me confused as well. I was pretty sure that Resolution in PS was the same as DPI...?

[Kingv]

Now you've got me confused as well. I was pretty sure that Resolution in PS was the same as DPI...?

DPI and resolution are often used interchangeably. But for the sake of clarification if you've followed my steps and are looking for the resolution settings it's best to say resolution rather than DPI since I wasn't sure how much experience you have in PS.

A good rule of thumb is to create everything at a high resolution so that it makes scaling down sprites easier. They come out crisper that way as well.