Procreate Canvas Sizes for Printables (Setup Guide)
Canvas dimensions, DPI settings, and the layer-count trade-off for making sellable wall-art printables in Procreate — plus the export-to-ratios step.
Procreate makes gorgeous art files and slightly awkward product files. The difference is decided when you create the canvas — get the pixels right on day one, because unlike vector apps, you can't scale up later.
Canvas setup: the decision that can't be undone
In New Canvas → Custom, work in pixels with DPI set to 300:
| Target largest print | Canvas px | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 11x14 / A4 range | 3300 x 4200 | Generous layer budget |
| 16x20 / 16x24 / A3 | 4800 x 7200 (2:3) or 4800 x 6000 (4:5) | The seller sweet spot |
| 24x36 at true 300 DPI | 7200 x 10800 | Only newer iPads; single-digit layers |
The trade-off is real: Procreate allocates a fixed memory budget, so pixel count buys away your layer count. Most sellers land at 4800x7200 — big enough that 24x36 still prints at a poster-respectable 200 DPI, small enough to keep 15–30 layers on a mid-range iPad. (What 200 vs 300 DPI actually looks like: DPI explained.)
Pick your canvas shape by your composition, then plan for the crops: keep focal elements inside the central 80% so the other four ratios crop cleanly (crop-loss math here).
Painting habits that protect print quality
- Size brushes in px, not "feel": a 4 px sketch line that looks right zoomed out prints as a hair. Zoom to 100% periodically — that's print size at 300 DPI held ~13 in away.
- Flatten finished groups to reclaim layers instead of shrinking the canvas.
- Check edges at the end: canvas-edge smudges that are invisible on iPad glow in a white frame mat.
Export and the DPI-tag trap
Export PNG for line art and flat illustration, JPEG (max quality) for painterly pieces. Now the trap: regardless of the 300 you typed at canvas creation, Procreate's PNG/JPEG exports often open in print dialogs as 72 DPI. Your pixels are perfect; the metadata lies, and buyers' print software believes metadata.
So the last mile is the same as the Canva workflow: run the export through the Ratio-Pack Generator, which crops all five standard ratios at full resolution and rewrites the DPI bytes to a true 300 in every output file.
Worked example: a painted landscape, 4800x7200 px
- Painted on the 4800x7200 canvas, horizon line at 60% height, signature 300 px from the bottom edge.
- Export JPEG max quality → 11MB.
- Generator: the 4:5 crop (loses ~17% of height) would clip the signature centered — drag it down 350 px; sky absorbs the loss.
- Readouts: 8x10 at 480 DPI, 16x20 at 240, 24x36 at 200. Write those three truthfully into the listing.
- Package as five files under Etsy's caps, upload, done — no desktop, no Photoshop, the whole pipeline ran on the iPad.
Ratio-Pack Generator
Turn one image into every print ratio buyers ask for — 300 DPI, cropped in your browser. Free, instant, nothing uploads.