What file formats are best for screen printing?
The best file formats for screen printing are original vector file formats. But don't get discouraged if you don't know what that is or if your file is not vector artwork. Truthfully we can use just about any file format that contains text or graphics. The only difference is whether the file needs to be converted to a printable format or not.
Vector artwork most typically comes from Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. These two software programs have been around for well over 10 years and are considered the two definitive programs for creating vector artwork. Recently with the popularity of Rich Internet applications, there have been a few new web based alternatives such as Gimp and Aviary. Illustrator is our program of choice but we can take any file you have and turn it into something we can work with.
Vector artwork is art that does not have jagged edges and can be resized to any size and not lose any quality. The opposite to vector artwork is raster artwork. Raster artwork would be considered a JPEG or bitmap file format. When these files are resized, they lose quality as the edges become jagged. These jagged edges can be seen on prints if the file hasn't been converted to factor artwork or if the DPI is too low. Don't get me wrong, we can print from raster artwork but it is not optimal.
Vector artwork will create a very sharp print and gives us the opportunity to change the size of the artwork up and down until we get the right size. We don't ever have to worry about the design looking pixelated or blurry.
The main take-home point however is that we will take any file format you have. Nine times out of 10 we do not charge anything extra to convert your file to vector-based artwork. We won't which you won't and that is the best possible print on your custom t-shirts.
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