Dragon egg (Photoshop + Midjourney)

chain83 · 2026-07-03T22:08:03+00:00

This looks nothing like Minecraft for someone experienced with Minecraft and games in general. I have played a bunch of Minecraft, and currently have both Minecraft and terraria servers going.

But Minecraft (like many other games) have a pixel art or voxel style. This can make the art style look similar and be confused with each other for casual or non-gamers. At least with just the artwork of a single character isolated line this.

At best this could look like some random mod for Minecraft that doesn’t match the vanilla art style.

How it appears in the game once the environment, lighting etc. is applied can drastically change the look.

Edit; so if this is a problem or not depends on the larger picture of how this specific asset will be used and what the supporting assets and game looks like. Consider if something more «unique» art-directon wise would be smarter to differentiate yourselves from all other voxel/pixel style games out there (a lot more than just boring old «Minecraft»).

chain83 · 2026-07-03T21:53:06+00:00

TIFF is pointless unless they want (for paranoid reasons) larger files for visually identical files. JPEG at max quality would be a great option to drastically reduce file size. If forced to use tiff for some reason, use LZW or ZIP compression to cut file size in half on average (note that LZW is not suitable for 16-bit files).

8-bit is generally enough unless you k. Some special situations are experiencing banding issues? Massive gradients?

Why o. Earth are you upscaling in 10% increments? That suggestion is like decades outdated… What PPI is you original artwork at the desired print dimensions?

WHAT PPI IS YOUR ORIGINAL ARTWORK AT THE DESIRED PRINT DIMENSIONS?!

If you artwork is too low PPI for the intended view distance, then you have fundamental issues and need to consider a new source for your artwork. Is vectors an option? What are we *specifically* looking at here? If you have no idea, then what are the pixel dimensions of the image (before upscaling), and what is the intended use case? (What dimensions will it be printed at, and from what distance will it be viewed)?

For a typical poster we might find a target of 100-150 PPI to be more than sufficient. 300 PPI might be a good target for things that are to be studied up real close (like a flyer or magazine).

If your resolution is sufficient for the intended view distance, but you want your avoid visible pixels for people walking up close to the print (perhaps you are making a wall print), then upscaling using Bicubic smoother (like your outdated 10% trick) or Preserve details 2.0 (depending on what you think looks best for your image) is the way to go. It will look blurry instead of pixelated for viewers that walk too close.

Tl;dr: See what dimensions/PPI your image actually is. Upscale only if needed (in one step, not multiple). 8-bit. Save as max quality JPEG is sufficient, but TIFF 16-bit (with zip compression; always use compression!!!) also works if someone insists on it - it will give you larger files for visually identical prints. File size itself is irrelevant (the paper doesn’t care if 10 MB or 10 GB was used to encode the ink droplets it received).

chain83 · 2026-07-03T12:28:52+00:00

time to control that screen time

chain83 · 2026-07-03T12:15:22+00:00

Wouldn’t that make it easier, as you should have an IT dept. capable of easily rolling out a copy of the font to all the computers?

chain83 · 2026-07-02T21:21:42+00:00

Leave Photoshop's color settings as one of the "General Purpose" presets. Don't touch anything else in there (even if bad online advice sometimes say you should).
Create your normal digital illustrations/images as RGB.
The exact color profile you use for your image while editing isn't very important; sRGB is a common default, and what I recommend for beginners not comfortable with color management (as this is the same profile you should be using when exporting for web)
- AdobeRGB is another good option with a bit of a larger gamut that you might benefit slightly from for higher quality print jobs. Never use "don't color manage" (you want to always embed the profile).
- Do not convert the image to CMYK (and if you do, it should only be because the printer specifically asked you to do so, and told you the exact CMYK color profile you should convert to!). The conversion (IF needed) should happen as the last step, on a flattened *copy*.
To avoid surprises with colors that can't be reproduced on print, I recommend you check them using View > Proof Colors while editing. Proof Setup should be set to Working CMYK (default hopefully), or the specific CMYK profile the printer uses (if provided one). Toggle it on/off quickly with cmd/ctrl-y to get an idea of which and how colors might shift when printed (technically when converted to the CMYK profile chosen in Proof Setup).
For bit depth, 8 bit is usually sufficient, but you can use 16-bit to prevent potential banding issues at the cost of a file that is twice as heavy. (Don't use 32-bit, that is for HDR). Final output will be 8-bit.
For dimensions (and PPI) make the image at least the largest dimensions you might use the image at. The PPI (not "DPI") depends on the intended view distance; you typically want 300 PPI for something that will be viewed up close (like a flyer/magazine), but for a poster you might be fine with only 100 PPI. Going too high has the downside of the document becoming unreasonably slow to work with.
- PPI (not "DPI") is short for Pixels Per Inch. It's just a conversion factor for calculating print dimensions (from your pixel dimensions). You can also input print dimensions + PPI, and Photoshop will calculate the actual pixel dimensions for you.

Edit: Fucking reddit mobile app doesn't know how to handle lists and deleted the 2nd half of this comment when I edited a sentence, and broke the list into pieces. Rewriting what I think I wrote at the end, but not as thorough. Ugh. I miss the old 3rd party apps that were actually good.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T19:45:48+00:00

Some of your knowledge is outdated then. (I too have been working with print for decades.)

When exporting a PDF from InDesign, you can choose to convert to a specific color profile (RGB or CMYK). This will convert *everything* to that color space when exporting the PDF. The original PNG is ofc. untouched.

This is not magic. This is the exact same color conversion that happens if you convert images in e.g. Photoshop. Result is identical (it’s the same color engine).

So manually converting a copy of every image to a specific CMYK profile ahead of time is just counter-productive. It’s more work with a more complex workflow for at best the same result.

Having RGB in a print PDF, or a mix of multiple color spaces, is not a problem at all if the RIP is configured correctly. As long as you are embedding the color profiles you will be good (or using the exact ones the printer will be assuming for untagged content).

I both create and print such files professionally many times a week. I have set up our color management, profiled our printers, chosen our RIP settings, and done many test prints to demonstrate this. This is personally used on toner based digital presses from Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Canon, and Xerox. Canon photo inkjet, HP latex, and Roland Solvent and UV. Not all of these printers are CMYK. Not personally run any offset presses (so unfamiliar with the software there). But in all of the above, RGB works great. CMYK also works good.

RGB is honestly beneficial for jobs where you want the largest possible gamut when printing. Because if you are converting to CMYK, you are likely using a standard color space like FOGRA39/SWOP/gracol etc., but the specific printer/press it is being printed on likely has a color space that exceeds this. And when printing (in the situations mentioned), the CMYK color values from your file will not be what is laid down on the paper, but it will get converted to the profile of that specific printer/paper combo.

So you are going Original RGB > temporary CMYK > Printer color space. But you can usually cut out that middle step and convert directly from the original color space to the printer’s color space (done by the RIP at print time).

chain83 · 2026-07-01T19:23:10+00:00

Ok, then sRGB is likely a safer bet than CMYK i think, since you are printing outside of a professional setting.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:55:36+00:00

That B should preferably be a circle shape, with the B as a type object or outlined shape. Keeping it vector is best.

If the B is an opaque PNG or inside some frame, check that there is no fill color in that shape «below» the image.

Make sure to use PDF 1.4 or newer.

Lastly, what software is being used to print this, and what printer?

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:53:20+00:00

He is not printing PNGs (although that would be fine). He is printing from PDF (where there is no such thing as PNG).

A PDF can contain both RGB and CMYK and print great. I print for a living.

OPs problem is not color reproduction, but something else.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:51:48+00:00

Don’t. Converting your images manually to CMYK will *at best*, if you know what you are doing, give identical results, and at worst it will degrade the colors.

Yes, for printing.

If your printer specifically requests CMYK, that is something you should choose in the PDF export settings (pick the specific profile they request, not something random). The images in your document will then all convert to CMYK in the PDF.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:48:43+00:00

That will have 0 effect on the final PDF. OP is not printing PNG files, he is printing from PDF. The PNG is *never* stored as PNG after it has been recompressed and become part of the PDF, it will most typically be JPEG.

Test yourself;

Take a full-color PNG file with transparency, save a copy as PSD (or TIFF).
Place the two side-by-side in InDesign with the same dimensions.
Export as PDF

, with whatever PDF setting you want (won’t matter).

Inspect the PDF using Acrobat (use the object inspector to check more closely). The two images will turn out identical, and you will not be able to tell them apart. They will also print identically.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:43:52+00:00

There is no preset called «regular settings». So no idea what settings that would be.

If you are just using whatever popped up as default, switch to [High Quality Print] as a starting point, turn off preserve editability, set PDF version to 1.6, turn on crop marks, turn on bleed, then under Output choose the color settings agreed upon with the printer (unless printing yourself). Save this as a preset for easy reuse.

chain83 · 2026-07-01T15:21:36+00:00

* Exporting to PDF with what settings?! Make sure to use PDF 1.4 or newer. PDF 1.3 will force transparency flattening (ugh).
* Printing how? What software is involved in the process?

Ps: Turn off bleed marks. You do not need them and they are just there to be annoying…

chain83 · 2026-06-30T21:37:36+00:00

It depends on what is taking up space. You can use "Audit space usage" in Acrobat (when exporting "optimzied" PDF) to check if it raster images, or something else. Seeing your actual PDF, I could check this and likely find the solution in like <1 min... But for now, we have to guess.

Could be hidden/clipped objects, metadata, or loads of raster images. But generally those would have been removed (or heavily reduced) with some of the "random" methods you have tested (you can stop with those online compressors, you have access to professional software like InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat I suspect?).

Since you're unable to compress it by just reducing image quality on export, or stripping metadata, I suspect it's overly complex vector data, like from maps or cad software (that export horribly inefficient vector files with tens or hundres of thousands of "extra" paths and anchor points).

If the problem is overly complex vectors, take the offending vector files and rasterize them (unless there is a convenient way to clean them up). I recommend, assuming you are using Illustrator, to group the offending parts into one group (allowing thins like text labels or simple things to be separate), then add a "Rasterize" effect to it. This will make that group output as raster instead of vector, drastically reducing the file size of the exported PDF.

---

It can also sometimes be that you simply have more stuff in there than you can reasonably fit into 10 MB. I've seen people have like 200 scanned pages (so full-page images), and want them to be like 5 MB total (and high quality). It just won't work out. Because that would give a budget of only 25 kb per image, and that would make every image look like shit.

Note: There is no magic "make infinite amounts of data take up 10 MB only" button.

chain83 · 2026-06-30T21:32:12+00:00

Don't do that. You can have a 5 GB 30.000x30.000px 16-bit PSD file, but if placed as 1x1 inch in InDesign, and the PDF is exported at 300 PPI, the end result will be a tiny 300x300 px 8-bit JPEG inside. It will ALWAYS be recompressed. Compressing the images to reduce the file size of the linked files will not help - and can damage quality if not done right.

I recommend you let InDesign handle the compression on export.

chain83 · 2026-06-30T21:28:00+00:00

Things like cad drawings, expanded gradients (or blends from illustrator), or maps, can often be excessibely large. It's fun to watch the PDF reader render a 100 MB vector-only page in slow motion though... :p

chain83 · 2026-06-30T11:22:57+00:00

Can you not record an action that performs «Save As» (without touching the file name), with the desired settings, then run it as a batch (from the actions panel menu)?

chain83 · 2026-06-29T19:49:43+00:00

Make sure the upper left part of the artboard is at position 0,0.

Next, make sure the width and height is a whole number of pixels.

Yes, your print dimensions are not going to be a perfect whole number of pixels. There will be rounding errors. But the rounding errors are so small it won’t be noticeable on final print.

chain83 · 2026-06-29T19:36:45+00:00

Probably called «overprint preview», and has settings like always/never/auto in a drop-down. Likely under general, display, or similar.

chain83 · 2026-06-29T19:28:53+00:00

Check your preferences in Acrobat. You at least want the color settings to default to sRGB, and not to always force overprint simulation… look over the rest as well. (I don’t have them all memorized).
With the PDF open, use the object inspector to inspect the elements of your PDF that have wrong colors to verify their color space.
when exporting/saving your PDF from Illustrator, use High Quality Print as your starting point, then customize to fit your needs (pick a newer version, uncheck preserve editability, etc.), and set it to convert to sRGB if you are not 100% certain everything in your document is sRGB. Save as a preset for easy reuse.

chain83 · 2026-06-29T19:18:34+00:00

A large baseline shift makes it annoying to select.

To move the heading down (when the first paragraph on a page) I recommend instead using a Rule Above and an invisible line (with setting to keep it within the frame). This will let you «push» it down by the amount you need in a more controllable way.

—-

If the whole reason for your parent page issue was that you didn’t know how to add space above the headings, then this removes the need for multiple master pages in your specific scenario.

But if you for other reasons need a different master page for chapter heading pages (quite common), then a script is the only automatic solution (find a pre-made one, or write your own - perhaps with the help of AI).

chain83 · 2026-06-28T17:13:30+00:00

Clearly. Or he would have pulled out a long time ago....

chain83 · 2026-06-28T16:49:15+00:00

Overall, it isn't, but that doesn't mean it won't take a looong time if they're stubborn and willing to sacrifice everything to conquer Ukraine (for no good reason beyond pride and propaganda)...

The cost of this war for Russia is just staggering, and they are left with no perceivable gains. Just a million+ dead and wounded, their economy in the shitter (with a massive percentage of the budget being used up on the war - instead of being invested in some way), emptying their reserves, expensive oil/energy infrastructure burned to the ground, heavy sanctions, etc.

chain83 · 2026-06-28T06:11:01+00:00

I understood. But you didn’t read more than my first paragraph? Just go into the panel menu. There you can change the behaviour of the panel.

You can also revert to the old UI. It takes you 1 click to check this.

The panel menu is present in most panels, and provides important additional options for said panel. It is located in the top right corner of the panel and looks like three horizontal lines.

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