What is it good for / why would you do this?

If you are asking yourself, "why would I want to lower my artwork's quality?" well, I am here to provide you with a few reasons as to why you may want to try this for future publicly shared works, as well as how you can do this.

 

As digital art becomes more prevalent, so does a number of issues that come with publicly (and sometimes privately) displaying your work. Here are some of the reasons as to why one may want to export an image in a lower quality for online usage:

 

1. Client proofs - offering images of a lower resolution until full payment is complete

2. Offering / displaying samples

3. Preventing art theft, and

4. Offering high resolution downloads as a separate reward eg. Patreon or Ko-Fi

How to Set it Up

① With your CSP file open, click on [File] in the upper left-hand corner of your window, scroll to and click on [Export (Single Layer)] and then select [.jpg (JPEG)]. We are selecting a JPEG file because we want to be able to manipulate the image quality directly.

 

Note: This cannot be done with a PNG image

② In the Export Setting dialog box, under the section titled [JPEG setting] select, scroll or type the quality you wish for the image to be exported at.

 

③ While still in the Export Setting dialog box, go to the section titled [Output Size]. With [Scale ratio from original data] selected, input your preferred scaling percentage (see below for my settings).

④ Select [ok] and export your image! the settings will remail for the next time you want to export another JPEG file.

 

💡 Quick tip: Add the option to export as a JPEG file as well as the option to export as a PNG file to your command bar in order to quickly be able to export a low-quality and a high-quality image, in quick succession.

Best Settings with Examples

Below is an PNG image on a 3000x3000px canvas at 300dpi (10x10") at 100% percent quality exported at 100% of the original size (shrunken for blog purposes)

Now it takes a bit of playing around to find the right settings, however, here are a few combinations for what I consider the best settings when exporting a low-resolution image from Clip Studio Paint:

Type: JPG | Quality: 25% | Scale: 100%

 

Notes: A Bit of pixelization; if anyone zooms in you can noticeably see that it is not high-quality image

Type: JPG | Quality: 25% | Scale: 50%

 

Notes: very pixelized; noticeably low-quality

Here is another example with a fully coloured drawing.

Quality: 25% | Scale: 50%

Quality: 25% | Scale: 25%

If you have been paying attention, all of these images look pretty great, however when you zoom in, the quality is noticeable. Now go forth and make low-quality images!