300dpi custom CPO...

[M3talhead]

What's the average size you guys think a CPO would be if it were 300 dpi, and 68x35? I'm using GIMP 2.2 to draw up plans for my artwork, and at that dpi and size, I'm getting about 276 mb, just for the background. No other renders, or colors, just the transparent background. Is that normal? I'm new to photoshopping, so I have no idea. Seems kinda big to me.

[mahuti]

No, that's pretty normal. It would be safe to drop it to 200 dpi (or even a bit less... check with the printer you want first) if you need to save on file size / ram.

[M3talhead]

What about 150. Would that produce a graphic smooth enough for a cpo>\

[mahuti]

In my opinion, yeah... some printers would like more, though, and won't accept stuff that is that low.

I'm not familiar at all with Gimp... other than the name, so I don't know how to optimize it for filesize.

I do all of my arcade art work as vector, so I don't have those issues. I'll typically do vector, then add images to the vector file if I need to, keeps the file size down & clarity up. If you're doing art with lots of blends & shading, that's not an option, though.