Making cut-paper art digitally, does resolution of shapes need to match?

Question

First, I'm curious if there's an official name for this. It's cut-paper art and it is collage, but those terms are much broader than what goes on here. However I know that this style of work, cutting pieces of paper to represent shapes and objects, is a thing and I wonder if it has a specific name. But that's a minor point.

My question is - I am making this in Photoshop by starting with various paper textures (scans of actual papers) and cutting them down to my shape. However, the paper texture scans are various resolutions and the shapes are various sizes so when they all come together in the same image all of the parts have wildly different resolutions. The question is - does this matter? Should I try to keep the resolutions similar?

For example, let's say the paper that I use for the shirt is 1600x1600. I make the shirt out of almost the entire area and I don't transform the size. Then, for the hands, I also use a 1600x1600 file and cut one hand from that. I need to transform the hand to be much much smaller. I'm curious to know if this is a problem - if it causes a problem that I don't foresee.

My intention is to use these designs as elements on a printed flyer or poster, but they will probably be used digitally as well.

Answer 1

As you are doing this in Photoshop then technically everything is the same resolution once it is rasterized in your document.

A few things you want to do are:

1. Start with textures that are high enough resolution so if you need to enlarge them in your composition you won't end up with pixelated textures.

2. Use the textures so that they appear to be the at a similar 'zoom' (probably not the best way to describe what I mean). Depending on wether the textures are at the same resolution or from different sources and are different resolutions and sizes this may mean reducing or enlarging. This will make the textures fit together and look more natural.

3. If needed, adjust levels, color balance etc. on each texture to match the other textures.

This is all assuming you want the textures to fit together and look natural (i.e. not pixelated and obviously 'Photoshopped'), if not, ignore everything I just said!