Why does nobody talk about uploading 4k test files to your portfolio at 2am

Last week I was prepping my digital art showcase for a client review in Portland, and I thought I had everything locked. Then at 1:45am I noticed one of my showcase pieces looked blurry on their screen. Turns out I was uploading a 300dpi PNG but the gallery site was compressing it down to 72dpi and it looked like a potato. I spent 2 hours re-exporting everything at 4k resolution and making a test file with a tiny checkerboard pattern to verify sharpness. Now I always upload a 4k test image first before any big showing. Has anyone else run into gallery compression wrecking their work without realizing it until the last minute?

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wilson.sam1d ago

Friend of mine does digital illustrations for indie game studios. She had this exact thing happen during a game jam deadline, except she found out the compression issue when the client sent her a screenshot asking why the character's face looked like melted plastic. She had been using this artsy site that auto optimized everything down to 60% quality without telling anyone. Now she keeps a tiny file with a red and blue checkerboard pattern she uploads first to check if the edges stay sharp. Took her three hours that night to redo all her asset exports and she still talks about it like it's a war story. These sites really need to show you the actual file quality you're getting before you hit publish.