How to make lines not pixelated in Procreate

I don’t know if it’s my settings or the sizing or what, but everything I’ve been drawing has been very pixelated and the final product looks blurry. Any ideas on why and/or how to fix it?

You are Creator, illustrator, graphic artist or you just like it drawing, and you use Procreate, the design app for ipad. Today, I answer your question: Why is my line pixelated on Procreate »?

Wondering why your line is pixelated on Procreate?

You want your drawing to have well-defined contours, but when you use the stylus, it feels like your line is jerky, that your line is shaky and imprecise. Your drawing is pixelated et / ou poorly defined. You may also encounter a blurred line problem when resizing an object.

This may be due to several factors. Let's look at the different reasons that can make your pixelated and/or blurry line.

Pixelated line: opt for a better definition of the canvas

The first thing to check when it comes to rasterized lines is the size and the definition of your canvas. Indeed, the smaller these are, the more your stroke will be pixelated !

Conversely, the larger your canvas and its definition, the more your line and your drawing will have a nice quality.

You can define the size and definition of your canvas at the start of the project. But if it is already started, you can modify it along the way:

• Go to the Actions panel (wrench)
• Then in the Canvas tab
• Tap the Crop and Resize button

• Next, click the Settings button at the top right of your canvas

A window appears.

The first two fields allow you to define the size of your canvas. If you want to keep the same height/width proportions of your canvas, enable the “Resample Canvas” button before changing these two fields.

The PPP field (DPI in French) allows you to configure the definition. If you want to produce content for print, the better definition will be 300DPI.

Save the changes by clicking on OK, return to your canvas and draw: normally, your stroke should be less pixelated.

Pixelated line: improve its quality with Streamline

The other reason why your stroke may appear jerky, resides in your brush settings.

Go to your brush from the brush library, and click on it: its parameters appear. In the first tab " Line drawing", you can modify a parameter called " Streamline » : this allows you to smooth your line so that your line is sharper / softer, rounded.

In my example below, using the Plume Studio brush, I drew the orange line with the Streamline parameter at zero: choosing this option has the advantage of having much more precise lines, but in fact, more “trembling” as well. It is perfectly suited to writing, for example.

My second blue line was drawn with the same brush, but the Streamline option pulled to its maximum, to prove to you that this tool smooths and lengthens the lines to reduce imperfections et improve the sharpness of your line.

Rasterized line by changing the size of an object

The other reason that may explain the pixelation of your stroke, is the change in size of an object.

There are three prop methodsdaring in Procreate: I present them to you from the fastest (which has the least quality) to the longest (which offers a sharper line).

Go to the object transformation tab (5th button from the left, in the shape of a cursor).

Your layer is grabbed, ready to be resized.

nearest neighbor

This interpolation is both the fastest, and therefore the simplest: its final result is somewhat irregular because it only takes into account one pixel on each side of the perimeter during the calculation. Here is an example by reducing my blue line according to this method.

Bilinear

This interpolation takes into account an area of ​​2×2 pixels and then averages these four pixels to reproduce the shape, larger or smaller. its definition is therefore better than the nearest neighbor and therefore proposes a smoother result with a less pixelated line.

bicubic

This interpolation is both the slowest of the three methods but also the one that offers the best quality, because it takes an area of ​​16 pixels as the basis of calculation.

How to make straight lines on Procreate?

Finally, I wrote an article explaining how to make straight strokes on procreate, which is a subject quite close to this one, so I invite you to consult it!

The rasterized lines have no more secrets for you! You now know how to improve your line quality on Procreate, whatever the situation!

do not forget to save your work, and go to my other articles on Procreate to learn how to tame this tool 😉