Digital Art Guidelines

You can save production time and avoid extra art charges on your digital printing here at New Directions Graphics Apparel by providing us with the right kinds of files. Your finished product will also look much better. If you’re in Sacramento, Roseville, Rancho Cordova, or Davis, CA, please take a moment to read the following guidelines before you contact us.

Pixel Based files

The following formats are supported: PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIF, TIFF. For best result please use PNG. It is important to make sure that these file formats are created at least 125 dpi at 100% print size.

Digital photographs will also work fine. As a general rule it is recommended to use a photo from a digital camera that is at least 3 megapixel. The file format from a digital camera is usually a .jpg which as listed above will work fine

Raster Graphics Limitations:

Most web files are low-quality files are not suitable for printing.

Raster files are highly dependent on image resolution to reproduce accurately in print. As a general rule it is a bad idea to enlarge raster images due to pixelation.

If you are not sure of your file and want our professional opinion, then you can send us your file for evaluation. We will not charge for file evaluation. [email protected]

Save file as RGB but check for out of Gamut colors- Preview files in CMYK vs RBG.

A gamut is the range of colors that a color device can display or print. A color that may be displayed on your monitor in RGB may not be printable in the gamut of our CMYK garment printer. Gamut of CMYK color inks for garments, is a lot smaller than what can be represented using RGB. This results in a photograph printing with some of the colors changing hue and looking dull. This often happens to the bright rich blue found in sky areas of an image. The image below left is the original RGB, to the right, the image has been printed to CMYK. Notice the color shift.

Special care instructions for digitally printed shirts:

Yes. As with all decorated garments, you will prolong the life of the shirt by turning them inside-out and washing them in cold water. Never use bleach! Your shirt can be machine dried on low heat.

**Please note…Direct To Garment printing on dark shirts requires a special pre-treatment that will bind the white underbase to the fabric. This pre-treatment will make the fabric slightly stiff after the ink is cured. Most people will not notice it, however, the stiffness will be gone after the first wash.

Maximum Imprint Areas

DO NOT upload or send us files 72 dpi or smaller.
*Sizes are not absolute but should be used as a general reference.
The smallest shirt in your order will dictate the maximum size of your artwork.