How to prepare an image for T-shirt printing

Most disappointing results come from the file, not the printing. Five rules and your T-shirt will come out just as you see it on screen.

1. Resolution: the bigger, the better

On a T-shirt the default print area is 25.4 × 30.5 cm (the size of the red box in the customisation tool; on other garments the box is scaled to the garment). For a sharp print at that size you need an image of at least 1500 × 1800 pixels; for a chest logo, 1000 pixels on the longer side is enough. Rule of thumb: about 60 pixels per printed centimetre. Images downloaded from WhatsApp or social media are often shrunk and compressed: ask whoever sent it to you for the original. The customisation tool shows a warning if the image is too small for the size you've chosen.

2. Format: PNG with a transparent background

A JPG always has a background (usually white) that would print as a rectangle. A PNG can have a transparent background: we print only the design, and the colour of the T-shirt shows through around it. We accept PNG, JPG and WebP.

An alternative that works well: pure white background on a white T-shirt, pure black background on a black T-shirt. The reason is explained in the next point.

3. Pure white and pure black don't print

In DTG printing, the colour of the fabric acts as the base. On a white T-shirt, anything in the file that is pure white (RGB 255, 255, 255, i.e. #FFFFFF) isn't printed: the cotton shows through instead. On a black T-shirt, pure black (RGB 0, 0, 0, #000000) isn't printed. Two practical consequences:

• White text on a white T-shirt, or black text on a black T-shirt, won't be visible: it's not a printing fault, it's the colour of the garment.
• A pure white background on a white T-shirt (or pure black on black) disappears, leaving only the design, just like with a transparent PNG.

Watch out for "almost white": if the image is low resolution or a compressed JPG, the white background isn't pure white but contains slightly grey or coloured pixels that the printer doesn't recognise as white, so it prints them. On a white garment they show up as a greyish-green graininess around the design. To avoid this: use PNG, an adequate resolution and a genuinely pure background (#FFFFFF or #000000) or transparency.

4. Colours: what you see is almost what you get

The screen emits light, cotton absorbs it: there's always a small difference in tone and brightness between the file and the print, more noticeable with fluorescent colours and very bright reds. On dark garments we print a white base first, so the colours stay solid.

5. Small details and text

Lines thinner than 1-3 mm and text shorter than 6 mm can lose sharpness on fabric or may not be visible at all. If your logo has tiny text, enlarge it or remove it: a detail too small to read isn't a production fault.

6. Image rights

You can print anything you created yourself or that you have the right to use. Brand logos, protected characters (for example Disney) and other content covered by copyright or a registered trademark can only be printed with authorisation: you're responsible for what you upload, and any claim from rights holders is your responsibility. Before uploading an image, we ask you to confirm this.

Sources

• Print area and resolution: print-box sizes set in our workshop for each garment; the 60 px/cm (≈150 dpi) threshold is common practice for DTG and DTF printing.

FAQ

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