Getting the perfect print for your items can be a bit daunting for sellers new to the print-on-demand space. Luckily, our print manager shared some of his best practices to ensure your designs come out just right:
Don’t use low-resolution images in your designs. Keep your PPI in the 150-300 range. As a general rule, 300PPI is more appropriate for material that will be read closely. If your final art size is quite large and you expect some range in the viewing distance you could get away with 150PPI.
Design and create raster artwork at the maximum size you intend to print. Due to the limited nature of raster graphics, any increase in the size of the artwork degrades the quality of the image as it goes to print. Setting up your artboard to our maximum print size (14x16) will ensure that your artwork is not distorted as it is sent to the printer.
Do check to make sure the colors of your design are compatible with the garments you make available to select. Avoid the common mistake of trying to print white ink on a white garment.
Don’t use low opacity for color control or effect when printing DTG. Low-opacity artworks don’t print as well as they look on digital displays.
Don’t use registration marks in the corners of your artwork. If you design your artwork to the size that you intend to print, there will be no change to the size of your artwork.
Do keep in mind that when converting realistic photos to a printable version, there will be some loss in print quality.
Following the steps outlined above is a one-way ticket to awesome DTG prints.