Tile Creation Inquiry

Evening all, hope you're well, question about map tile creation. I've tried searching for this answer but after a whole 20mins I cant find it. Hoping someone can help. New to the site so perhaps my key words aren't correct Question: What do people use to create these tiles? I see a range of styles and artistry but not sure what programs they could be using to create my own

Many different art or photo programs are used. Some are paid for and some are free. The main thing to keep in mind is find one that you are comfortable with and can save or export to the supported formats (jpg, ping, gif). Thoses are the formats I know of but there might be a few others.

webm and mp4 is also supported, I believe. Personally I use Photoshop for my tile creation and either Photoshop or Aftereffects for my animation effects. I have made a few items in Blender as well, but never got comfortable enough with the program to utilize it as much as I do PS.

Although I do not publish to the Marketplace, I do make my primary income as a freelance RPG artist. For most projects, I use a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator, but you can get similar results with the GIMP and Inkscape if cost is a factor. 

GIMP is your friend, easy and free.

Thanks everyone for your replies!

each grid is 70 pixels x 70 pixels, i would make it a jpeg if i was you but keep in mind that youre going to be going for this default imo if youre going to try and make your own tiles.

The Roll20 Wiki states to use a 140x140 ratio per grid unit at a 72 dpi density. <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Creating_Marketplace_Assets" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Creating_Marketplace_Assets</a>

In addition to the standard settings, if you are creating large JPG maps, when you save as a JPG file, your software should prompt you an option for save "Quality". Photoshop has a 1-12 scale, and generally you can save as a 8-10 and the quality loss is not noticeable unless you are zooming in 500-1000% and looking closely for the difference. In Roll20, the max zoom size is 200% so you should not be encountering this issue unless you are saving at a very low quality. Anything lower than a 5 on save quality I can see a pixelation at standar zoom, so I would suggest breaking into sections to avoid pixelation on larger maps.

photoshop, illustrator, after effects, premiere, they have a great feature, most of the native files are interchangeable between the programs. So you can drag and drop psd files into after effects for example. For start learning Gimp will be fine.