How do you shrink your image without losing the quality

I am pulling my hair out because it keeps looking crunchy

I am in fact not very good at icon making so other people will be more useful -- but what program are you making your icons in?

Generally I just crop what I need and resize. Sharpen, brightness on contrast and then saturation for mine

But I use ps for mine?

I'm pretty lazy when doing mine so I don't do all the extra stuff for mine. Contrast and brightness go a long way

slow resizing, usually i'd do like increments of 100 or 50 px depending on the size of the original

I didn't think of doing it that way. Does that help?

so like if the original image is 500, i might go 400 > 300 > 200 > 150 > 100 (assuming you cropped beforehand or you'll adjust your cropping as you go)

it helps to avoid losing too many pixels when it compresses, it miiight be a bit blurry the more you resize so you can adjust sharpness too along the way

Ahh

Makes sense

I usually sharpen once and contrast after, which isn't a cure all but it works

i would say never resize an image from way too big to a 100x100 image asap because it can either look too crunchy or impossibly blurry that it can't be usable, so increments is the best way to go

The biggest thing is sometimes it's better to make it darker when you do more contrast

I'll have to try that next time

yeah i used to make icons for sharing in the past and it was the main way i fixed the crunchiness, then any color fixes/contrasts/etc i do when it's icon size

also if you're using photoshop, unsharp mask is great! it's a lot softer than regular sharpen (these are all things that are on photopea too, which is free)

Ooo

I've been doing ffxiv for select characters (to save my sanity) for me and anyone else who wants them, but I'm pretty lazy when it comes to how meny steps I take

Me already contemplating other characters when I'm done with msq for Tsubaki but that's insane talk for how long this has taken me rofl

Mostly coming from knowing that there isn't a lot of ffxiv icons out there to be shared lol

the ff suffering...

I'm already doing... 6 characters right now?

But I'm into Endwalker at least now rofl

But that aside... I also like these tips rofl

I asked a question then fell off the planet, apologies

wisdombitch: I use Clip Studio Paint!

Thank you for the tips!! It sounds like Photoshop might be the way to go 🤔 I’ve tried the incremental shrink, but I still get crunchy... but I haven’t tried sharpening as I go either. I’ll try that before I see how to acquire photoshop

honestly, id try other avenues before ps rofl

i like it but I hate adobe

and it's like 360$ or something every year

i need to use clip studio more because i like that too

I use a browser ps dupe for everything

I won't say that my icons are great but they're by and large sufficiently legible

lol yeah thwats what i do usually ill have the 100 by 100 psd pulled out of the main list of windows

then i just copy and paste or open up the images unto their own files. then resize down to the size i want so PSD takes care of the rendering

then when im done ill copy from the resize, paste in the 100 by 100 icon window

i would actually suggest photopea just because it has similar functions with ps without the pricetag

it is online tho rather than an app

ive never tried it before because i have PS but if you dont have it already and it has the same functions without the price tag? I heavily encourage it

PS is a steep price. It does what I want the best ive noticed, but fuck if i dont hate Adobe's BS

So if you can get something that does a decent enough job without paying it, id rather you did that

yeah the functions are really similar. they lay the buttons out a bit differently but they have the same layering system and some of the same editing features

it's close enough for iconmaking compared to like gimp which is usually the popular alternative for ps

i never could get into gimp. tried a few times

but im glad theres a closer alternative

crying yeah, definitely use photopea instead of photoshop if you don't have the latter... I stopped using the more recent photoshop bc I was also having crunchy issues with my icons when the old versions of photoshop

plz save yourself the money rofl

the only time I have massive lag spikes on my computer is when Adobe decides to just CHECK IF THERE'S UPDATES

gimp is great for icons tbh, it's just a really steep learning curve if you've only used photoshop/photopea... I only use it for resizing myself

Not to install them because i turned that off

to check....

that could be it too honestly

ive always had PS

i liked photopea since i only used ps cs2 for the longest time lmao since you could originally just download it free on the adobe site

and it was good enough for icons despite its many... annoying issues... (mostly looking for updates that don't exist)

if you don't have prior ps experience gimp is also good to learn but it does become a challenge to use it if you are too used to ps compared to photopea

God cs2 was so good. I miss it.

The only photoshop I have used was.... Photoshop 2.... back when you bought things on disks

I’ll look into both Photopea and Gimp though, thank you, all of you!!!

no problem!

oh i have cracked photo shop 5 i believe

back from ye old art days

i think i can send it if u want it? lol

If paying isn’t owning then pirating isn’t stealing 😌

I would love witchcess:

*I would love that