Pixelation

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Xamllew on April 10, 2010, 07:37:01 pm

Title: What does pixel art look like when printed?
Post by: Xamllew on April 10, 2010, 07:37:01 pm

This is a silly question that's been making me wonder for a few weeks and since I don't have a printer I don't have a way of knowing. I have searched for images but I honestly couldn't find anything. So I would just like to see what pixel art looks like when printed on a piece of A4 printing paper (preferably at a regular resolution).  :D

Title: Re: What does pixel art look like when printed?
Post by: Larwick on April 11, 2010, 12:53:49 am

I've printed out my work before, and I think it looks really nice, as long as you have a good quality print (and therefore can see the pixels). I don't have it to hand though but if no one else can get some printed pixel art i'll try sometime.

Title: Re: What does pixel art look like when printed?
Post by: Ai on April 11, 2010, 01:08:59 am

I agree with Larwick; the pixelly aspect comes out very well. I'll add: The usual issues with transferring images from screen to print applies (not all of the colors you have on screen are printable.). In practice, this mainly means you need to check for very saturated colors and do some fiddling with curves to get a result close to what you want.

If you can get an ICC profile for the printer, GIMP has a 'color proof' display filter that can give you an approximate idea of what your image will look like printed. For example, with some recent print work, I found that a bright yellow sun printed out as mid-green. (this looks pretty weird :). The display filter makes it easy to mess around with the image colors while getting a constant preview of the printed colors.

Giving an image might be misleading, as the image color would be additionally distorted by the scanning or photographing process.
My experience, though, is that printing tends to make things look somewhat darker and less saturated.

Title: Re: What does pixel art look like when printed?
Post by: Mathias on April 11, 2010, 05:10:56 am

It looks awesome. Something about pixel art existing in physical form (printed on paper) that makes you appreciate it more. I've printed lots of pixel art out before.
Blow the image way up before printing, but make sure to have each pixel be perfectly square when done. Use 'nearest neighbor' interpolation. Don't trust the printer to blow it up for you.

I printed out our hex collab, as an example, check it out:

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=8572.msg97423#msg97423 (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=8572.msg97423#msg97423)



eboy does tons of pixel art prints. (http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/category/everything/explore/wares/posters/)

Title: Re: What does pixel art look like when printed?
Post by: Xamllew on April 11, 2010, 05:51:03 am

Oooh, those do look awesome. I will definitely have to try this someday. I could see something like that hex collaboration as something that would be very enjoyable to examine hanging on a wall.

Thanks for the GIMP filter idea AI, I'm going to try that now.