Exporting PNG, JPEG or TIFF from Easel by Zaweba

A finished painting in Easel lives in a .zeasel file, which keeps wet paint wet, the palette, masks and the time-lapse. To share it, print it or use it elsewhere, you export a picture. Easel by Zaweba exports PNG, JPEG or TIFF, at 1x or 2x, with or without the impasto lighting.

Three choices, then: format, size and lighting. Here is how to decide each.

Choosing a format

PNG is lossless. It keeps every pixel exactly, so it is a safe choice for anything you will edit further or want to keep at full quality. It is also the format Easel sends to Paint by Zaweba when you hand a picture over for editing.

JPEG is compressed. Files are much smaller, which makes it the usual choice for sharing online, sending by email and posting to social media. The compression throws a little detail away, so it is not ideal as a master copy.

TIFF is the traditional format for print and archiving. Printers and print services often ask for TIFF, and it is a good choice for a high quality master you want to keep.

A simple rule. JPEG to share, PNG to edit, TIFF to print or archive.

Choosing a size

Export at 1x or 2x. 1x gives the picture at the size you set up when you started, A sizes, squares or custom millimetres at 72 to 300 DPI. 2x doubles it.

For printing, the size you need depends on the DPI and paper size you started with. If you set the canvas up for print, 1x already matches it. For sharing on screen, 1x is usually plenty. 2x is handy when you want extra detail, a larger print or a crop with room to spare.

With or without lighting

Easel turns paint height into a surface lit by a movable light, so thick oil shows ridges. When you export, you choose whether to include that impasto lighting.

With lighting, the export looks like a photo of a real painting: ridges, highlights and texture. That suits sharing a painting as an object, so viewers see the thick paint.

Without lighting, the export shows the colours flat. Flat light turns the relief off for judging colour and clean exports, so this is the choice for prints, for colour accurate files and for anything you plan to edit further.

Before exporting with lighting, move the light to the direction and height you like best. Raking light from the side shows texture strongly. A higher light is gentler.

A sensible export routine

Export a full quality master first, TIFF or PNG, without lighting. Then make whatever versions you need from there: a JPEG with lighting for sharing, a 2x PNG for a large print, and so on. Keep the .zeasel too, since it is the only file that keeps wet paint wet and the full time-lapse.

Export mix-ups to avoid

Exporting with lighting when you meant to print colours accurately is the usual one. Another is sharing a huge 2x TIFF where a JPEG would do. And remember the reference photo and tracing sheet are never part of the painting, so they won't appear in your export. Easel by Zaweba keeps the export about the paint and nothing else.