Preparing your images correctly is the most important thing you can do to ensure the final printed product is exactly what you had in mind. Below are some tips and tricks to help you achieve the best print quality possible:
What image format should I use?
Printfection.com supports many different image formats. Each format has a trade off between image quality and file size.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics Format) - This format does not use compression and therefore is a "lossless" format that retains all of the details apparent in your original design. Furthermore, PNG images support transparency making them the best choice for designing dark colored apparel. Using a transparent PNG image, it is possible to customize every product available on our website with only one uploaded image (including dark apparel). Overall, the PNG format is Printfection.com's recommended format for image uploads.
JPG or JPEG - This format is the most popular image format on the web today. Most digital cameras export JPG images by default. For photographs, JPGs are ideal because of their ideal mix between compression and image quality. If your design is primarily text-based, has straight edges, or large blocks of solid colors, you might notice some distortion with this format. JPGs do not support transparency, therefore any white in your image will print as white on dark colored apparel products. For light colored apparel products, JPGs work fine because the white in the image is not printed onto the product. On light colored apparel, the color of the product "shows through" all the white in your image. Overall, JPGs work best for photographs applied to light colored products.
GIF - This format is supported but not recommended except for the simplest of designs.
BMP - This format is supported but not recommended except for the simplest of designs.
What's the difference between resolution, DPI, and PPI?
Resolution determines how much detail is printed onto the final product. Resolution is just another word for how many microscopic dots, or pixels, there are in your image. All "digital" computer images are made up of pixels. The term PPI stands for "pixels per inch" and is a measure of how many pixels there are in one square inch of your image. The higher the PPI, the higher the resolution and thus the better your image will look on the printed product. DPI stands for "dots per inch" and is very similar to pixels per inch. For our purposes, these two terms are essentially the same.
What size/resolution works best?
Although a low-resolution and high-resolution image might look the same on your computer screen, there will be a big difference between the two images when they are actually printed onto one of our products. This is true because most computer monitors can only display 72 PPI (pixels per inch) while printers can print between 300 - 600 PPI.
We recommend designing your images at 200 PPI. We have found this resolution to be the best combination of image quality and file size. Designing your image above 200 PPI will increase the file size exponentially while the image quality will remain essentially the same. If you download a product template you won't have to worry about DPI, PPI, and resolution because all templates come standard at 200 PPI.
Our systems accept images from 100 PPI - 300 PPI. If the image you are uploading is less than 100 PPI we will automatically convert your image to 100 PPI. This will make the image appear smaller on the product. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about this. If we allowed you to make these low resolution images larger, the printed image would be very low quality. If you want the image to appear larger on the product you need to upload an image that is a higher resolution (higher PPI). Conversely, if you upload an image greater than 300 PPI we will down-convert your image to 300 PPI. This down-conversion will make your image appear much larger. You can use the + and - tools in the product designer to make your image smaller.
How big can my file be?
Our servers will accept files up to 10 MB in size. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, you may need to limit your uploads to an even smaller size.
