The reason I ask this is for comparison of large VS small start-up projects. IMHO the larger you start, the more detail and chance of revision and fine tuning. So....to kick it off..... The smallest I usually start with is approx 1500w X 1000h. Typically 3000w X 2000h. Have also doubled that on occasion, yet it takes lots of planning & patience. Most times those end up multi layered compositions. Newbie Questions welcome, C'mon Lurkers!!

I do some of mine at about 12" across and 8" down, 300 dpi -- big enough for a book cover wraparound. If it's just a front cover, then I do it at 5.5" x 8", again 300 dpi. For the screen, when I set up the Bryce scene, that translates to maybe about 275 x 400 pixels (actually, bigger than that, but I'm too lazy to do the math; so long as it's the same aspect ratio, I'm good) for the front cover and about 900 x 600 pixels for the wraparound. Um. What does VS mean?

800x600 for all initial stuff, then I move it up in size, but it really depends on how much detail I want to fool with if it's not going to be a closeup or detailed image...

as big as my pc will let me which is about 9000px X 6750px for bryce and 5000px X 4000px for poser- sometimes its 4000px X 3500px depending on poser's mood. i do it that big cos i find it easier to change bits in post

2400* 1600 pixal To make faster changes then 6000*4000 for final.

I start small like 1200 by 820 or something then make it bigger if I need too. Its a lot better to work small, especially if you have a lot of objects in the scene.

size matters not..;) 800x600, because it is the limit of my patience..;)

1024X768, my screen resolution, unless I want a different orientation. But the height is usually 768.

It depends on what I'm doing it for and how long I'm willing to wait. I'll probably start out with a 640 x 480 in Bryce to get a rough idea. If I'm doing it for the screen, it'll go up to 1024 x 768 for a final render. If it's for print, I'll kick up the largest dimension to 3000 or so for 300dpi images that will fit on a typical piece of paper. If it's something simple for a web interface or icon (usually buttons or whatever), then I'll actually go smaller. Probably with the largest dimension around 400 or so. I'd probably try more fancy stuff (at decent resolutions too), but I still don't have the computer for it yet (at least with my level of patience). Thus I tend to do more modeling than rendering.

the size of my project is bigger than yours :P

I tend to start off at about 850x600 (the max recomended setting for Bryce on my pc) for the early stuff, but then my early stuff is mainly just boxing out and adding models as I do them. As I get closer to the end I'll up its size though to get a better feel for how it'll look. Final renders are about 2500-3000 pixels across-ish, depending on lighting rigs ;)

In Bryce, just the standard 540X405 for testing, 'cause the smaller the size...
...the quicker the render!

Len.
(Then I take a bucket of sand, and count the grains until a full-size image renders).

I usualy start at 800x600 then do the final render only at a larger size, ready for post work. I get the impression from the answers that some folk would say the final render is the start of the project (those that are talented in post work :) ), while for others the render is pretty near the end.

1600x820 (no particular reason, just like the aspect)

I'm in the 800x600 crowd, as well 'cause I'm just lazy (and it's the Max size for the rendo challenge!)

I Always start of aT 800 X 600. Final render is always 1024 X 768 or larger.

i start out as a 900 x 675 at 72 DPI do all my modeling and put the scene togather. then i render at 3600 x 2700 at 300 DPI

It's not what I start at, it's what kills the computer later, and at the moment it's global shadows.... wail!!! and it's 1200x899 today.

I start out at the default setting on bryce then move it up to 800x600 the closer i get to the finish. If i want to adjust anything in the wip i go down to 640x480 just to make that adjustment. I also use the zoom in most times now which saves having to change resolution size.

I start at my working resolution of 1600x1200 on my desktop and 1400x1050 on my notebook. Then I adjust the render from default to premium (or use the spot render) depending on the complexity of the scene.

I start out at 1000x600 I like a letterbox look. I then bump it up a bit to 1200x720 for a full screen shot. I don't do print so I don't have a reason to go much bigger.

1024x768 Any bigger and people will complain about scrolling around to see stuff. Hear that a lot with my 2d stuff.

That's why I downsample a copy of the final 16x12 tif file to jpeg for upload. Only thing I have found is that windows viewer in XP doesn't always like LZW compressed tif files. Makes errors in it's display of them. I use ThumbsPlus to do my image library functions so it's not much of an issue for me though.