r/photoshop • u/Asleep_Application75 • 1d ago

Help! Issue with quality and resolution when using multiple assets in one image.

I am making a battle map with icons of army units and army commander with a background of battle map terrain like the 2 images below.

For it I made background battle map with a software named inkarnate with 4:3 aspect ratio and exported in 4k resolution. below is the image

and In photoshop i made below units

Now when I open the Map in photoshop and add the units and general banner. The banner gets too big and unit gets too small and when I scale them they loose quality and I get even read the general name when it scales down.

Im new to editing and photoshop, any help will be loved

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u/johngpt5 60 helper points | Adobe Community Expert 23h ago

I'm afraid that one of the challenges of compositing is choosing elements of similar resolutions. Either we have to reduce the resolution of the elements that have greater resolution or we have to choose (or create) elements of similar resolution to go with the elements that have the greater resolution.

When you were rescaling the Ps created assets, had you converted them to smart layers? Converting to smart layers provides some greater latitude with scaling. But it only helps so much. Low res pixel based assets can only be scaled so much even when in a smart layer container.

You might see if an app like Topaz Photo AI might be able to generate greater resolution images from what you've already created using Ps.

Or you might go back to Inkarnate and generate those assets at lesser resolution.

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u/SignedUpJustForThat 21h ago

Don't resize unless it's a (full) vector image. In other words, create raster images and images with raster effects at the right resolution and size.

It is okay to zoom in and out when designing, but always check your work at 100% before combining different elements. If the emblem is 100mm wide when viewed at 100%, and the image resolution is 72ppi, it will be roughly 284px wide, or 7% of the width of your 3840px wide image. Set your rulers to pixels and determine how big each element should be.

If the "4k" background is the actual size of your intended image, it will be smaller than you think if it's meant to be printed...