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I have created an icon in Illustrator that I would like to use as an emoji on Discord and Twitch. I exported it as a 2031 × 2002 image and uploaded it to Discord.

Discord_vs_resized_withbox

When I use the emote on Discord (top pic) it gets resized automatically to 32x32, and it looks nice and crisp. Twitch, however, asks for the image to be uploaded at the specified resolution (28x28) rather than doing the resizing itself.

If I use Illustrator to export for web at 32x32 resolution, or if I try to resize the image in GIMP, it results in the bottom image.

  1. Why do the two not look the same, despite both being 32x32?
  2. How can I get a 32x32 (or, 28x28, for Twitch) PNG that is as crisp-looking as the top one? (either directly via Illustrator, or resizing an exported .png in GIMP/Photoshop)?

Edit: The top image, when I save it, has an original resolution of 128x128px. However, it is definitely being downscaled to 32x32 when it is being displayed in Discord (the white box is a 32x32 image in GIMP for scale).

So what I don't understand is how does it look good when the 128x128 image is downscaled to 32x32 on screen, vs having a 32x32 image to begin with, and is it possible to achieve this effect with a native 32x32 png? I am a photo/image/editing novice, so this might be something very obvious that I'm missing!

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  • I don’t believe that top image is 32x32. Have you checked its size in a raster editor?
    – Wildcard
    Apr 18, 2019 at 15:37
  • You are partially correct - I updated my description to reflect what is going on, but I think I'm still missing something about how image files work!
    – Réka Nagy
    Apr 18, 2019 at 16:05

1 Answer 1

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In Illustrator, I guess the best solution is to reduce the icon size from 2031 × 2002 to the needed sizes 28 × 28 and 32 × 32 and instead of exporting for web, use the Asset Export Panel and export it as 1x .png.

Assets panel

This is the 32x32px.png result made from your top image traced:

32icon

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  • I option-dragged all the assets in my image into the asset export panel, and set the height to 28 px like in your screenshot but when it exports, it still leads to the same blurry image when it exports.
    – Réka Nagy
    Apr 18, 2019 at 14:18
  • I see the problem, I updated the answer.
    – user120647
    Apr 18, 2019 at 14:38
  • This has the same result as before - and in the image you made, I can also see a loss of detail. Which is why I don't understand how the two icons in the photo I show in my question, there is such a different in crispness - if they are both 32x32 pixels. Am I missing something obvious and basic about how images work?!
    – Réka Nagy
    Apr 18, 2019 at 14:57
  • My original image is already with many details less, it's a traced image from your question
    – user120647
    Apr 18, 2019 at 15:07

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