Hi, this may be a very newbie question but it’s a topic ive never gotten a concrete answer…as they may not be one.

When designing something for large print IE: poster, vinyl, Wall collage, or building Banner, how do you guys set up your document (whether Photoshop or Illustrator). What I mean is, for instance, you’re making a design that will be vinyl on a wall that will be 20’x20’, Do you in the document put that to scale or scale down to a 1:4 scale 5’x5’ to keep the document size small and prevent crashes.

In the past done some mix of the two and it’s worked, but im wondering if there is a more efficient way. I made illustrator, and photoshop document to scale but the file size just increases chances for the program to crash…not similar to 3D programs when your working on an object with more than a million polygons.

In short, is it more efficient to make the document to scale THEN put it to resize when you export or work in scale from the jump. If this is too broad, im specifically working on a project in illustrator with the final size being 3’6" x 10’x2" h.

Thanks for any/all feedback replies.

 

Personally I don't work much with a raster drawing program, mostly just editing already created images. The design work I do is done in a vector program instead, and scaling is usually 1 to 1 because vectors create smaller file sizes by default when it comes to very large images.

The rasterizing is left to the post script printer.

Scaling raster images does not give good results as a general rule, and you get those pixelized results without a really good scaling algorithm.

Edit:
One thing to note...if an image is overly complex then a vector file size can be even larger than a raster and a raster or a hybrid file would be better.

 

TL;DR Work in scale from the jump.

Bear in mind that size is one thing and resolution another. I would set up the program with the actual desired dimensions, e.g. 20x20 inches, but then think about the resolution you actually need.

But, even better, defer rasterization as long as possible. Do everything in vectors in illustrator and then, of you need a raster, use Export As and choose an appropriate DPI resolution.

 

Personally I don't work much with a raster drawing program, mostly just editing already created images. The design work I do is done in a vector program instead, and scaling is usually 1 to 1 because vectors create smaller file sizes by default when it comes to very large images.

The rasterizing is left to the post script printer.

Scaling raster images does not give good results as a general rule, and you get those pixelized results without a really good scaling algorithm.

Edit:
One thing to note...if an image is overly complex then a vector file size can be even larger than a raster and a raster or a hybrid file would be better.

NEVER scale up a raster unless you absolutely cannot avoid it.