Choose your Procreate canvas size by working backward from where the artwork will end up. For video and motion work, set pixel dimensions that match your composition (3840×2160 for UHD, for example) or a multiple of it, and ignore DPI. For print, size the canvas to the physical output at 300 DPI. In both cases, go as large as the layer count you need allows, because Procreate gives you fewer layers as the canvas grows.

Start with the Delivery Target

A canvas size is a commitment about resolution, and everything else follows from it. Before tapping the + in the Gallery, answer three questions:

1. Where does this end up? A comp in After Effects, a Nuke script, a print, a social post, or a style reference for a generation tool.
2. What is the final frame size and aspect ratio? 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 2.39:1, or something custom.
3. Will the camera move? Push-ins, pans, and parallax need extra pixels beyond the frame.

If you can't answer these yet, pick a safe working size (covered below) and resize later. Procreate's Crop and Resize tool makes that workable, though not painless.

Pixels Matter, DPI Mostly Doesn't

Procreate lets you enter width and height in pixels, inches, centimeters, or millimeters. DPI only describes how many pixels fit per inch for printing. Changing it alters the physical dimensions of the canvas, not its pixel dimensions.

For motion work, the pixel count is the only number that counts. A 3840×2160 canvas is a 3840×2160 image whether it says 72 DPI or 300 DPI. Video workflows are built around pixel dimensions, not print metadata. Enter your size in pixels from the start so you aren't doing unit math.

For print, flip that thinking. Pick the physical size, set 300 DPI, and let Procreate calculate the pixels.

Common Canvas Sizes and When to Use Them

These are starting points, not rules.

Procreate's built-in presets include Screen Size, Square, 4K, A4, 4×6 Photo, and US Paper. They're convenient, but check the actual pixel dimensions in the Custom Canvas screen before trusting a preset for a video job.

Balance Resolution Against Layer Count

Procreate shows the maximum number of layers a given canvas can hold, and the number drops as the canvas gets bigger. How low it goes depends on your iPad model, so a canvas that gives you plenty of layers on one device may feel tight on another. Procreate also caps canvas size at a maximum of 16K in one direction, depending on the iPad.

This tradeoff matters more for motion designers than for illustrators. Layered artwork headed for After Effects often needs many separated elements: background, midground, character parts, FX passes, and shadow layers. Before you commit, open the Custom Canvas screen and check the layer readout against what your design needs.

A practical approach:

• Sketch and block in at a smaller canvas with high layer headroom.
• Move to the final-resolution canvas once the layout is locked.
• If layers run out, merge elements that won't need separate animation.

Pick the Color Profile Before You Paint

The Custom Canvas screen also asks for a color profile. Procreate ships with seventeen, and its defaults are Display P3 for RGB and Generic CMYK for print. Choose RGB for screens and CMYK only if a print shop specifically asks for it.

For video pipelines, this decision deserves care. Changing profiles after the fact is awkward, and community advice is to stay with sRGB if the work is going online. Display P3 allows more saturated greens, reds, and oranges, but those colors can shift or clip if your video project is set to a narrower working space. Decide your project's color management first, then match the canvas. If you have no strong reason for a wide gamut, sRGB is the lowest-risk choice for a handoff into a Rec. 709 timeline.

Design for the Motion You Plan

Motion artwork has needs that static illustration doesn't.

Match the aspect ratio exactly. If the comp is 16:9, make the canvas 16:9. Cropping later wastes pixels and can break your composition.

Add overscan for camera moves. If you'll scale a layer 150% in a push-in, a 1080p canvas will soften. Build at 2× or paint the background bigger than the frame, such as 5000×2813 for a UHD frame with room to drift.

Think in multiples. Working at exactly 2× your comp size makes downscaling clean and predictable, and it keeps scale values in After Effects easy to reason about.

Keep important elements inside safe areas. Procreate's Drawing Guides can help you mark title-safe or action-safe boundaries on the canvas.

Consider texture scale. Brush grain and paper texture can look different if you scale the piece later. A texture that looks right at 4096 px can look coarse or invisible if you scale the piece differently later.

Resizing After You've Started

You'll sometimes need to change course. Go to Actions > Canvas > Crop and Resize. You can drag the edges, drag a corner, or tap the width and height readouts and type exact values. The chain-link Aspect Lock keeps the ratio fixed.

Two details cause most mistakes:

• Resample off: the canvas changes size, but the artwork stays at its current scale. This is what you want when adding space around existing work.
• Resample on: the artwork scales with the canvas. Upscaling this way interpolates pixels rather than adding real detail, so enlarging a small canvas won't give you a sharp result.

There's also no snap-to-center option in Crop and Resize. If you need to expand a canvas evenly on all sides, a common workaround is a symmetry Drawing Guide with the quadrant option turned on, which gives you crosshairs to line the crop box up against. Duplicate the artwork in the Gallery before any large resize so you have a clean fallback.

The general rule is that it's easier to scale down than up. If you're unsure, start larger than you think you need, within your layer budget.

Save Your Setup as a Custom Preset

Once you've landed on a size that fits your workflow, save it. In the New Canvas menu, create a custom canvas, give it a clear name like "UHD 16:9 sRGB", and it appears in your preset list. Swipe left on any preset to edit or delete it. A small set of named presets (UHD comp, HD comp, vertical, square) removes the setup decisions from every new project.

Where Styleframe Fits in the Workflow

Procreate canvases often become starting material for something else: a style frame, a keyframe, or a look reference. This is where canvas choices ripple downstream.

For a Procreate artist, that suggests a few practical habits:

• Paint keyframes at the target aspect ratio. If a Procreate piece will serve as a start or end keyframe, make the canvas match the intended video frame so nothing gets cropped or stretched.
• Keep style references clean. A Procreate painting used as a style reference benefits from being well-resolved at a sensible size, rather than a heavily upscaled small canvas.
• Don't rely on upscaling as a fix. Starting at a proper resolution is still better than recovering detail later.

Results still come from the quality of the inputs you provide, and you should test with your own material.

Quick Decision Checklist

• Define the destination and final pixel size before creating the canvas.
• Enter dimensions in pixels for video work, and inches at 300 DPI for print.
• Match the comp's aspect ratio exactly.
• Add 1.5× to 2× headroom if the camera will move.
• Check the maximum layers readout in Custom Canvas before committing.
• Choose sRGB unless you have a clear reason to use Display P3 or CMYK.
• Save your size as a named preset.
• Duplicate the file before any big Crop and Resize.

Canvas size is one of the few settings in Procreate that's hard to fix after the fact. Spend a minute on it up front, and your artwork will move into After Effects, Nuke, or a generation workflow without softness, cropping, or color surprises.

Choose your Procreate canvas size by working backward from where the artwork will end up. For video and motion work, set pixel dimensions that match your composition (3840×2160 for UHD, for example) or a multiple of it, and ignore DPI. For print, size the canvas to the physical output at 300 DPI. In both cases, go as large as the layer count you need allows, because Procreate gives you fewer layers as the canvas grows.

Start with the Delivery Target

A canvas size is a commitment about resolution, and everything else follows from it. Before tapping the + in the Gallery, answer three questions:

1. Where does this end up? A comp in After Effects, a Nuke script, a print, a social post, or a style reference for a generation tool.
2. What is the final frame size and aspect ratio? 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 2.39:1, or something custom.
3. Will the camera move? Push-ins, pans, and parallax need extra pixels beyond the frame.

If you can't answer these yet, pick a safe working size (covered below) and resize later. Procreate's Crop and Resize tool makes that workable, though not painless.

Pixels Matter, DPI Mostly Doesn't

Procreate lets you enter width and height in pixels, inches, centimeters, or millimeters. DPI only describes how many pixels fit per inch for printing. Changing it alters the physical dimensions of the canvas, not its pixel dimensions.

For motion work, the pixel count is the only number that counts. A 3840×2160 canvas is a 3840×2160 image whether it says 72 DPI or 300 DPI. Video workflows are built around pixel dimensions, not print metadata. Enter your size in pixels from the start so you aren't doing unit math.

For print, flip that thinking. Pick the physical size, set 300 DPI, and let Procreate calculate the pixels.

Common Canvas Sizes and When to Use Them

These are starting points, not rules.

Procreate's built-in presets include Screen Size, Square, 4K, A4, 4×6 Photo, and US Paper. They're convenient, but check the actual pixel dimensions in the Custom Canvas screen before trusting a preset for a video job.

Balance Resolution Against Layer Count

Procreate shows the maximum number of layers a given canvas can hold, and the number drops as the canvas gets bigger. How low it goes depends on your iPad model, so a canvas that gives you plenty of layers on one device may feel tight on another. Procreate also caps canvas size at a maximum of 16K in one direction, depending on the iPad.

This tradeoff matters more for motion designers than for illustrators. Layered artwork headed for After Effects often needs many separated elements: background, midground, character parts, FX passes, and shadow layers. Before you commit, open the Custom Canvas screen and check the layer readout against what your design needs.

A practical approach:

• Sketch and block in at a smaller canvas with high layer headroom.
• Move to the final-resolution canvas once the layout is locked.
• If layers run out, merge elements that won't need separate animation.

Pick the Color Profile Before You Paint

The Custom Canvas screen also asks for a color profile. Procreate ships with seventeen, and its defaults are Display P3 for RGB and Generic CMYK for print. Choose RGB for screens and CMYK only if a print shop specifically asks for it.

For video pipelines, this decision deserves care. Changing profiles after the fact is awkward, and community advice is to stay with sRGB if the work is going online. Display P3 allows more saturated greens, reds, and oranges, but those colors can shift or clip if your video project is set to a narrower working space. Decide your project's color management first, then match the canvas. If you have no strong reason for a wide gamut, sRGB is the lowest-risk choice for a handoff into a Rec. 709 timeline.

Design for the Motion You Plan

Motion artwork has needs that static illustration doesn't.

Match the aspect ratio exactly. If the comp is 16:9, make the canvas 16:9. Cropping later wastes pixels and can break your composition.

Add overscan for camera moves. If you'll scale a layer 150% in a push-in, a 1080p canvas will soften. Build at 2× or paint the background bigger than the frame, such as 5000×2813 for a UHD frame with room to drift.

Think in multiples. Working at exactly 2× your comp size makes downscaling clean and predictable, and it keeps scale values in After Effects easy to reason about.

Keep important elements inside safe areas. Procreate's Drawing Guides can help you mark title-safe or action-safe boundaries on the canvas.

Consider texture scale. Brush grain and paper texture can look different if you scale the piece later. A texture that looks right at 4096 px can look coarse or invisible if you scale the piece differently later.

Resizing After You've Started

You'll sometimes need to change course. Go to Actions > Canvas > Crop and Resize. You can drag the edges, drag a corner, or tap the width and height readouts and type exact values. The chain-link Aspect Lock keeps the ratio fixed.

Two details cause most mistakes:

• Resample off: the canvas changes size, but the artwork stays at its current scale. This is what you want when adding space around existing work.
• Resample on: the artwork scales with the canvas. Upscaling this way interpolates pixels rather than adding real detail, so enlarging a small canvas won't give you a sharp result.

There's also no snap-to-center option in Crop and Resize. If you need to expand a canvas evenly on all sides, a common workaround is a symmetry Drawing Guide with the quadrant option turned on, which gives you crosshairs to line the crop box up against. Duplicate the artwork in the Gallery before any large resize so you have a clean fallback.

The general rule is that it's easier to scale down than up. If you're unsure, start larger than you think you need, within your layer budget.

Save Your Setup as a Custom Preset

Once you've landed on a size that fits your workflow, save it. In the New Canvas menu, create a custom canvas, give it a clear name like "UHD 16:9 sRGB", and it appears in your preset list. Swipe left on any preset to edit or delete it. A small set of named presets (UHD comp, HD comp, vertical, square) removes the setup decisions from every new project.

Where Styleframe Fits in the Workflow

Procreate canvases often become starting material for something else: a style frame, a keyframe, or a look reference. This is where canvas choices ripple downstream.

For a Procreate artist, that suggests a few practical habits:

• Paint keyframes at the target aspect ratio. If a Procreate piece will serve as a start or end keyframe, make the canvas match the intended video frame so nothing gets cropped or stretched.
• Keep style references clean. A Procreate painting used as a style reference benefits from being well-resolved at a sensible size, rather than a heavily upscaled small canvas.
• Don't rely on upscaling as a fix. Starting at a proper resolution is still better than recovering detail later.

Results still come from the quality of the inputs you provide, and you should test with your own material.

Quick Decision Checklist

• Define the destination and final pixel size before creating the canvas.
• Enter dimensions in pixels for video work, and inches at 300 DPI for print.
• Match the comp's aspect ratio exactly.
• Add 1.5× to 2× headroom if the camera will move.
• Check the maximum layers readout in Custom Canvas before committing.
• Choose sRGB unless you have a clear reason to use Display P3 or CMYK.
• Save your size as a named preset.
• Duplicate the file before any big Crop and Resize.

Canvas size is one of the few settings in Procreate that's hard to fix after the fact. Spend a minute on it up front, and your artwork will move into After Effects, Nuke, or a generation workflow without softness, cropping, or color surprises.