Why is my artwork super pixelated?

[AmyOC]

So I hand drew this lady and took a photograph of her on my phone. I opened it in Affinity Designer and traced the image in a couple of different layers. While I was tracing the image the pixels seemed fine but at some point the image started looking really pixelated and I don't know what i've done wrong. I've tried looking for solutions on Youtube already but none of them are helpful to me at the moment. I'm still very new to the software and to design software in general. Any help would be great, or advice. 

[Dan C]

Hi @AmyOC,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Can you please provide a copy of your .afdesign file so I can look into this further for you?

If you'd like a private upload link for the file, please let me know.

1 hour ago, AmyOC said:

While I was tracing the image the pixels seemed fine but at some point the image started looking really pixelated and I don't know what i've done wrong.

Can you summarise the steps you've taken in this document? For example which tools are you using, have you resized the canvas at any point, etc?

Many thanks in advance!

[AmyOC]

Hi Dan,

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I hope this is the right link. I "saved with history" and exported.  

[AmyOC]

I was also using a wacom tablet and pen to trace the image 

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, AmyOC said:

I "saved with history" and exported.  

I'm pretty sure Dan wanted the .afdesign file after that Save, rather than the Exported image

[Dan C]

Thanks @AmyOC, as Walt has mentioned I was hoping for a copy of your .afdesign file which you've saved in Designer as I need to see how your document is setup etc.

I can also see the image you've provided, when removing the blank space is roughly 1100px x 1400px, which is around 1.6MP - or in other words similar resolution to camera phone images from the early 2000s.

With a smaller number of pixels in your image, the exported file will appear 'blurrier' than at a higher resolution. Is there a reason for the current file size, or could this be increased?