Haha yeah sorry I did talk about it somewhere… Can’t remember where though. Sorry I don’t own any tablets so work on my computer if I’m messing with images. I usually use photoshop for most things (and occasionally other programs like ArtRage if I want something that looks more traditional art-ish.) GIMP is a free photoshop program artists have been using forever. Has a lot to offer and is free, but last time used it (admittedly some time ago) it wasn’t nearly as user friendly as PS. (But PS is pretty pricey unless you plan to use it a lot, can borrow the computer of someone who has it, can get access to an old copy (non-subscription) someone doesn’t need any more, or have access through work/uni etc.)
Traditional lineart is a bit of a pain to use digitally but its do-able. You’ll need a clear image or scan with as little shadow and a bright and clear as possible to make your life easier. The cleaner your lineart is (inked is best) the easier it will also be although I’ve worked with pencil too if it’s sharp enough. (Unless you want a sketchy look like the image I have for Raishall which is a pencil sketch coloured and textured digitally.) You also need a program that will allow you to work with layers and having settings like screen and multiply also are a big help.
Option 1- Set the lineart to semi-transparent and use it as a template to recreate it by tracing digitally. (Really hard unless you have a pen and tablet.)
Option 2- Clean up the traditional lineart and use that. Heaps of tutorials around, depends on the program you’re using. Youtube and deviantart are good places to look. (This is a very quick one on youtube but I’ve seen more in depth ones somewhere on deviantart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Ub_IdceF4)
I don’t think there are recommendations for games. I’d say no larger than a 15" laptop screen max (and smaller than that is probably recommended.) To a point the images seem to resize to the screen they are on. Save as .png files ideally (COG prefers it and the images are less scratchy than jpgs usually). Bear in mind they can be significantly larger than jpgs and some people get REALLY cranky if the app on their phones is huge (Re remember when that Oz game came out?), so if adding a lot of images, check the size of the files.
In saying that, keep your originals large, keep the layers and scale down to fit what you need (keep them, they can come in handy if you need to change things later- This just saved me when I had to give COG some extra images for one of my games.)
For facebook- IMO whatever as long as its clear. You don’t need high res on facebook. Somewhere between 800-1500px width is probably fine depending on what it is.
Jpgs compress the crap out of images generally making them much smaller. That’s sometimes a big plus, but for all other purposes, pngs are better. Every time you edit a jpg it probably loses more of the original data from the file which can cause artifacts. Not a huge deal for little images generally, more annoying if you need higher quality images. You can make a png into a jpg, but you can’t restore the original png from a jpg file.
I am really hating the trend for everything to go on subs with no option to purchase. There’s a possible rationale to offer it as an option for super expensive programs like PS, but often they work out cheaper to just buy outright if you don’t need every little update that comes along. I guess they know a lot of hobbiests are quite happy with 5+ year old programs so know it’s a way to force an ongoing income so I can see why its become a thing.
