Art & File Preparation

Art Tips

1. Always check your resolution when starting a project!
   Graphics programs are bad about defaulting to 72ppi which is way too low for print work. See Resolution
2. Always double check your text!
   Spelling mistakes and typos get costly when they make it onto a couple hundred shirts.
3. Design your art in RGB Mode.
   It gives you a larger color range to work with plus some other benefits. See RGB Mode vs CMYK Mode
4. Create your art on transparent layers whenever possible.
   See Transparency & Layers
5. It's always better to reduce an image than to try to enlarge one.
   Unless you know the exact dimensions you need and there's no chance you'll ever need to enlarge the art, creating the art larger than you currently think necessary can be helpful down the road.
6. Save multiple versions.
   Always keep backups of your large original graphics; Don't delete or save over them. You never know when you'll need the original again.
7. Layers...Use them!
   Yes this a duplicate. Yes it's that important!

Files: Short Version

Files: Long Boring Version

Raster vs Vector

There are two primary types of digital image: Raster and Vector. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, and work best for different types of art.

Raster images are the most common type of digital image, and are simply grids of tiny colored squares called pixels. Raster images are easy to work with and great for displaying very detailed graphics such as photographs, but they have a couple flaws that can affect how well they print: 1.They can't be resized perfectly 2.You have to get the resolution right (see below).

As you shrink or enlarge a raster image, the computer has to subtract or add pixels. The problem usually isn't as apparent when shrinking an image, but when you enlarge one, it quickly becomes very rough and unusable. This is why it's important to always start with large, high quality images.

Vector images are made up of mathematically defined shapes. (Luckily we don't have to actually know the math and can just draw the lines!) They're not as common as raster images because they're not suited to producing the complex color fading that occurs in photos, but they do have the benefit of being scalable. That simply means they can be enlarged or reduced as necessary without losing quality. Vector images provide very clean edged artwork and are excellent for creating  logos, cartoons, and other similar line art. The example above shows a simple flower and the vector shapes that were used to draw it.

A lot of times, we'll trace simple raster designs into a vector format to get sharper edges when the design is printed.

Resolution

Resolution is the number of tiny dots packed into each inch of a raster image and is usually measured in Pixels Per Inch (ppi). The more dots crammed into every inch, the finer the detail that the image can display.

Your resolution should be at least 300ppi for print work. Anything less and print quality will most likely suffer. Some art with fine details may need resolutions higher than 300ppi, but generally anything beyond 600ppi will just slow down your computer and eat storage space without adding much benefit.

Don't worry when a high resolution file looks huge on your monitor. Computer monitors generally operate at very low resolutions (72ppi or 96ppi) and when displaying an image with a higher resolution, the monitor phsycially can't make its pixels smaller to match the image specifications so it simply shows the image larger to match its pixel size. e.g. If you had a 1 inch wide image at 300ppi, it would be displayed as a little over 3 inches wide on a 96ppi monitor, but it would still only be 1 inch when printed.

RGB Mode vs CMYK Mode vs Grayscale Mode

Always design your art in RGB Mode!

Colors on the computer aren't quite as simple as the primary colors (yellow, red, blue) we all learned in grade school. There are several common modes that you might find yourself working with. Each has its own purposes and color range ("gamut"). Here's a quick primer.

Grayscale is the simplest color space. It's used for simple black and white images. A standard 8-bit grayscale image can contain white, black, and 254 separate shades of gray. Grayscale works fine for simple, one-color screen print designs.

RGB (Red Green Blue) is the way colors are created by TVs, computer monitors, and any other device that creates color by projecting light. When all three colors are turned on at full strength, you get white. When they're all turned off, you get black just like turning out the lights in a room.  You should create your digital art in RGB mode because it provides the largest color range, there are more tools available for manipulating RGB images, and our software is calibrated to work with RGB images.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) is the color model traditionaly used in print and is closer to the primary colors that we learn as kids. In CMYK, you start at white (usually your paper color) and go towards black as you add more of the component colors. CMYK has a smaller color range than RGB because there is no way to mix the four inks and create colors as vivid as those created by light on a monitor. In fact the colors will tend to go towards a muddy mess just like the finger paints you played with in kindergarten.

Unlike most printing industries, screen printed designs DO NOT need to be converted to cmyk. Most screened images aren't going to be printed with cmyk inks anyway, and even if they are, it's best to let us handle the conversion so we can make fine adjustments for a better print.

From wikipedia: Notice how the cmyk colors don't have as bright a range.

Fonts

If you're saving to a file format that keeps text editable (.psd, .ai), you'll need to do one of the following to make sure your text displays properly when we receive the file.

• Convert Text to Vector Art: Preferred method! The text stays nice and crisp. The option goes by different names in different programs ("convert to outlines" in Illustrator, "convert to shapes" in Photoshop).
• Rasterize Text: This works but can lead to rough, fuzzy text
• Send us the font files: This ensures the correct text and allows us to modify it if necessary, but unless you're using all free fonts it could be a copyright violation.

File Formats

If you have some other format that you would like to submit, let us know and we'll see if it's one we can work with.

Transparency & Photoshop Layers

This really does help us provide you with a better product and WILL contribute to a faster turn around time on your order.

FIRST, Please DO NOT flatten your photoshop files!

SECOND, if you're using another program still pay attention to this section; Keeping transparency intact helps us provide you with a better product!

Part of the Screen Printing Process involves breaking the art into the various colors needed to reproduce it in ink. One of the trickiest parts of this color separation step is eliminating backgrounds (usually white or black) that aren't part of the design. This step is much easier when the art is placed on separate transparent layers to begin with.

Example:
The images below show a simple shirt and the art used to create it.  Pay close attention to the transparent areas in the flames. (Click the examples to enlarge them)

• Perfect: All layers are intact. The only potential problem is that the text layer hasn't been converted to shapes.
• Acceptable: The art layers have been merged together but are kept separate from the solid white background color. If you use a program other than Photoshop, you may have to create a file similar to this one to save into a format we can use.
• Difficult to Separate: The art layers have been merged (flattened) with the white background layer. This makes it much harder to create good separations and the transparent areas of the flames will most likely never correctly duplicate the original art layer's transparency

The Shirt	Perfect	Acceptable	Difficult to Separate

Button Art

Button art is printed digitally and isn't nearly as finicky as screen printing art, but the same basic rules still apply to ensure a high quality product.