Over the last 10 years of my deep routed involvement in the direct to garment industry I have always found a need to help educate printers about getting great prints. Sure the printer has a lot to do with it but a really good image is the key ingredient to any awesome looking print. I am not about pointing fingers at someone that has no idea why the 1”x 2” 72dpi graphic they found on Google looks awful when printed 30 times larger onto a t-shirt. It’s all about learning what to look for until it becomes natural instinct. When you feed the printer a good quality image that’s what it prints. When you do the opposite you cannot expect a magical wizard to cast an impossibility spell onto the printer.
When it comes to a good image to print you need to look for the following rules of thumb:
1. The image you are going to print is close to or bigger that the size you are printing it at.
2. The best resolution is around 300 dpi. If an image 72 dpi but 30”x 30” and you shrink it down to
10”x10” you can increase the resolution and get a better print.
3. There is a reason you have to pay for high quality art, expect to pay about $30 per image
though. If you are going to use google to get images make sure to use the search tools and then
under “Size” select larger than 2 MP or more. This will at least give you larger images you will
need to shrink down to print. Also if the graphic you are going to copy has an enlarge option, it
should be view enlarged before saving it. You can check this by double clicking on the image
itself when you view it in google.
4. With direct to garment you are printing digital so it is not much different than your desktop
printer at home. Take your time and really pay attention to detail, are the lines clean? Colors
bright and solid? Chances are if it looks good to the eye it should print ok as long as the size is
big. If you are even stopping to look at the quality and size before you print you are on the right
track.
5. Purchase a decent graphics program so you can look at details like size and resolution.
PhotoShop works great and can be purchased for around $20 a month
When it comes to the FreeJet line of printers we depend on providing the industry with the best possible print quality and color output. We ask everyone to challenge this, the printer is begging to blow your socks off. Knowing that you need high quality images to offer your customers lead us to working with the best in the industry. We are not talking clip art or basic color, we are talking mega color high definition art. Yes! We have set up a deal to offer you 200 image downloads per month for only $18.99. We are proud to be working with “Great Dane Graphics” and this helps make finding and printing great art work a no brainer for all. Sign up today and start downloading, this is your next step to perfection!!
http://www.greatdanegraphics.com/?affiliate=omni
Here is a video by OmniPrints Paul Green on understanding what to look for with t-shirt graphics
Understanding image size and resolution in Photoshop
