Artwork Prep: What To Send Us, What We Fix, What We Cannot
Prepress spends more time cleaning up files than pressing transfers. Send us this and we will ship faster. Send us the other and we will call.
The short version, from the production floor.
The short answer: send us a transparent PNG at 300 DPI or better, at the actual size you want it pressed. That is 95 percent of the files we accept and 95 percent of the orders we ship the same day.
The longer answer: we accept PNG, JPG, PDF, SVG, AI, and EPS. We convert everything to CMYK for print output and generate the white underbase automatically. If your art is on a white background, we key it out. If it is on a knockout that is almost-but-not-quite transparent, our software catches most of it. The rest goes to a human on prepress.
What we fix on the way in: low resolution scaling, off-color CMYK conversion, missing bleed, incorrect anti-alias edges, and rasterized text that came in soft. We do not fix pixelated logos pulled from a website, blurry photos scanned from a napkin, or copyright violations.
The single biggest thing new customers get wrong is sending art at the wrong size. If you send a 2000-pixel-wide logo and want it pressed at 12 inches, we will scale it and the print will look fine. If you send a 400-pixel-wide logo and want it pressed at 12 inches, the print will look like a screenshot. Size the file to the actual press dimensions before you upload.
You are on the right page if you fit one of these.
New brand owners uploading their first design and unsure what format to use.
Etsy sellers running third-party art from clients where file quality is uneven and needs review before ordering.
Contract decorators taking customer files and forwarding them to production without knowing what will get flagged at prepress.
Print shops moving from screen setup files to DTF and adjusting to a different color management workflow.
Anyone whose last transfer came out looking soft, blurry, or wrong-color and wants to know what to change.
What this pairs with in production.
The products, methods, and materials this decision touches. Follow the trail.
Custom DTF Transfers
The base product. Upload the file, we run prepress, we print. Every step described in this guide.
Gang Sheets
The gang builder auto-detects each design boundary. Same file spec, same prepress workflow, packed together.
UV DTF Transfers
Same file spec, different substrate. Applied to hard goods, tumblers, mugs, phone cases.
CMYK Conversion
How our RIP converts RGB source files to print-ready CMYK. Read this if you care about color match.
White Ink Underbase
How the white layer under your color gets generated. Explains why DTF works on dark shirts.
Method Entity: DTF Transfers
The method that consumes your prepped file. File specs, RIP behavior, and how the white channel is generated.
Method Entity: UV DTF
The hard-goods lane. Different file rules for rigid substrates, no white-layer economy on clear film.
Method Entity: Foil Transfers
Metallic finishes require specific spot layers in your file. Set up the foil channel before you send the order.
What we cannot fix.
Prepress is a cleanup lane, not a design department. Here is what we send back before printing.
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Images scaled up from small source files. If the original file is 300 pixels wide and you want a 10-inch print, the pixels do not exist. We will not fake them.
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Photos with heavy JPEG compression artifacts. The blocky halo around your logo when saved poorly is not something we can restore.
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Logos pulled from a website. Most website graphics are 72 DPI RGB, sized for screen. They print soft and off-color. Ask the brand for the original vector.
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Copyrighted or trademarked art without proof of rights. We will flag Disney characters, sports team logos, and brand marks and hold the order.
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Files with embedded fonts that did not come with the file. If your file references a font we do not have, the text will render wrong. Outline it before uploading.
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Anything under 150 DPI at final press size. We will call before printing and ask you to send a better file.
Related buying guides.
Same voice, same production floor. Pick the next question you have.
White Underbase Explained
How the white layer works and why it matters for dark garments.
Read guideHow to Choose a DTF Supplier
What prepress workflow to expect from a real supplier.
Read guideTroubleshooting DTF
Failure modes and fixes. Most start with the file.
Read guideHeat Press Guide
The press side. Get the file right, then dial the press.
Read guideHow DTF Works
The full production chain. Helps you understand what prepress does.
Read guideCare and Wash
How wash durability starts with a clean file.
Read guideSend the file. We will do the rest.
Upload PNG, JPG, PDF, SVG, AI, or EPS. Our system previews dimensions and color before checkout. Same day production, ships in 24 hours.