Pixelation

General => General Discussion => Topic started by: kauheaa on September 17, 2018, 10:22:36 am

Title: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: kauheaa on September 17, 2018, 10:22:36 am
I've googled and searched the forum but can't seem to find anything even though I'm pretty sure there must be a thread about this somewhere.

I've seen people post pixel art and animations on instagram without losing the quality, how is it done?
Do I have to use another program to post the files, do they have to be exact size or resolution, etc...?
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: MysteryMeat on September 17, 2018, 10:29:25 am
follow these steps:

1: don't use instagram

(slightly unrelated) 2: don't use pinterest

3: profit

this is part bitter memeing, but these platforms are genuinely just kind of terrible for pixel art and art in general since they're more meant for photos and pictures. To get any kind of reasonable quality out of them you gotta jack up the scale of your pixels a lot.

I reccomend using something like imgur, it's a far more reliable alternative in my experience despite some occasional weirdness.

Or, if you're after a more pixel-focused imagehost, try pixeljoint. The community's about as nerdy for pixels as we are, but the hosting there is stellar.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: kauheaa on September 17, 2018, 04:06:50 pm
follow these steps:

1: don't use instagram

(slightly unrelated) 2: don't use pinterest

3: profit

this is part bitter memeing, but these platforms are genuinely just kind of terrible for pixel art and art in general since they're more meant for photos and pictures. To get any kind of reasonable quality out of them you gotta jack up the scale of your pixels a lot.

I reccomend using something like imgur, it's a far more reliable alternative in my experience despite some occasional weirdness.

Or, if you're after a more pixel-focused imagehost, try pixeljoint. The community's about as nerdy for pixels as we are, but the hosting there is stellar.

yeah i guess so...i just already have an art instagram where i post my marker and pencil drawings and would like to also show off some pixel stuff from time to time.

Maybe I'll just link my pixeljoint gallery or something.

Still, I've seen some good quality pixel posts and cant figure out how on earth they do that, mine turn into mush X(
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: Kiana on September 17, 2018, 07:32:47 pm
Basically, you need to prevent the app from scaling (or filetype converting) your image at all, if possible. This is pretty true in general for social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) which is terribly optimized for pixel art because they expect people to be uploading .jpg photos.

I believe Instagram’s dimensions are 1080x1080px - so make sure your image is that size, and it should theoretically not kill your image quality.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: Retronator on September 17, 2018, 10:02:20 pm
Scale it up big over 1000px like Kiana said and I don't even think it matters exactly how much. You do the same for animations in Photoshop, but instead of exporting them as GIF, you render to video (at the huge 1000px+ size). Personally I haven't had problems with this approach.

One extra thing to know with all this is: when a person browses posts on Instagram, they take a 1 sec look, flick to the next image, 1 sec look, flick … If something catches their attention you might get 3 or 5 seconds of their time. While you might care about perfectly sharp pixels, I guarantee you, nobody else does, including pixel art aficionados (I'm extrapolating a bit here, but you get the point). It used to be different in the early days of phones, but now with high density displays, it really isn't a big deal. The problem is only when beginners post native or barely upscaled sprites and they get upscaled by the platforms into a blurry mess.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: kauheaa on September 19, 2018, 09:22:14 am


Thank you! Will go with that next time. :)

That's also probably right about clear pixels. Instagram is probably not The Platform for any art stuff really if you want people to actually see what you're doing (I'm working on a proper portfolio at the moment).
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: Kiana on September 19, 2018, 10:09:05 am
Having a proper portfolio would definitely help, good luck with it! Instagram is actually pretty good for connecting to other artists in my experience, but I think networking in person is the easiest way to gain a following on there aside from bringing in your fanbase from another site. I tend to mostly see animators/storyboarders on IG for some reason, and comic artists.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: MysteryMeat on September 19, 2018, 09:22:03 pm
I reccomend Artstation as a good portfolio website. It's built for it after all, and looks real slick for it.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: MysteryMeat on April 26, 2019, 09:27:52 pm
Im looking for a good place to find free pixel art. Dont want to credit anyone and need to use it for commercial use. Any suggestions?

I suggest dying in a fire.
Title: Re: Posting pixel art and animation to instagram
Post by: ryleewilli6 on May 04, 2019, 08:15:01 am
Instagram always gets quolity down. Don't really know how it's possible to upload good pixel art there.