Half the delays in contract screen printing happen before a single screen is burned – they happen in the art file. A print shop or brand that sends production-ready artwork gets on press days sooner and never pays for art cleanup. This guide covers exactly what “production-ready” means for a contract run, from a shop that prints on three ROQ automatic presses every day.
If you only remember one thing: vector for spot color, high-resolution layered raster for simulated process, and always tell your printer the garment colors up front. Everything else below is detail in service of those three.
Have a job ready to quote?
Send the art you have – even if it is not print-ready – and the piece count. We will flag any file issues and send exact per-piece pricing the same business day. 24-piece minimum, no setup fees.
Vector vs. raster: which your job needs
Spot-color designs – logos, text, flat graphics – should arrive as vector files: AI, EPS, SVG or a true vector PDF. Vector art separates cleanly into one screen per color and scales to any print size without quality loss. A JPG of a logo is not vector art, and neither is a JPG placed inside an AI file; if you can zoom in and see pixels, it will need to be redrawn.
Photorealistic or high-detail designs go the other way: a layered, high-resolution raster file (PSD or TIFF) at 300 DPI at actual print size. These jobs run as simulated process – the art is separated into 6 to 8 halftone screens that blend optically on the shirt. A 300 DPI file built at 4 inches wide cannot be printed at 12 inches wide; resolution is measured at output size, not file size.
The checklist we wish every file followed
| Item | What we need | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Outlined fonts | Convert all text to outlines/curves | If we do not own your font, unoutlined text reflows into the wrong typeface |
| Pantone callouts | PMS numbers for each ink color | “Our blue” means five different blues on five monitors; a PMS number means one |
| Print size & placement | Width in inches + location per design | A 12″ adult front does not scale to youth sizes without a plan |
| Garment colors | Every shirt color in the run | Dark garments need an underbase; some ink colors shift on some shirt colors |
| Transparent background | No white box behind the art | A flattened white background prints as a white rectangle – and yes, it happens |
Underbase: the screen you did not know you ordered
On dark garments, inks are not opaque enough to read true directly on the fabric, so a white underbase prints first and your colors print on top of it. That underbase is its own screen and its own station on press. It is why the same 3-color design costs slightly more on black shirts than on white – it is really a 4-screen job. A good contract printer builds the underbase from your art automatically; you do not have to supply it, but your quote will be more accurate if your printer knows garment colors up front. Our guide to how contract screen printing works covers this in more depth.
Halftones and fine detail: know your limits
Screen printing is a mesh-based process, and mesh has a floor. Positive fine lines hold down to roughly 1 point; text below about 8 points fills in; and negative detail (knockout text, thin gaps) needs to be roughly a third larger than positive detail to stay open. Gradients reproduce as halftone dots, and dots below about 10% or above 90% tend to drop off or plug on press. If your design lives and dies on hairline detail, flag it – sometimes the answer is a higher mesh count, sometimes it is thickening the art by a fraction of a point, and sometimes the honest answer is DTF for that particular design.
What happens if your art is not ready
It is not a dealbreaker – it is just a step. We redraw and vectorize rough logos, build separations for simulated process jobs, and send a digital mockup for approval before anything burns to a screen. Nothing prints until you have signed off on the mockup. The difference between ready and not-ready art is measured in turnaround days, not in whether the job can run.
Frequently asked questions
What file format is best for screen printing?
Vector (AI, EPS, SVG, vector PDF) for logos and spot-color designs; layered 300 DPI PSD or TIFF at actual print size for photorealistic work. When in doubt, send the original working file rather than an export.
Can you work from a JPG or PNG?
Yes – we redraw or separate it as needed, and for contract runs art prep is quoted up front, not sprung on the invoice. A clean high-resolution PNG with a transparent background often needs no work at all for DTF, and only vectorizing for screens.
Do I need to provide color separations?
No. Shops that run simulated process daily do their own separations, because seps are built around the press, mesh and ink system that will print them. Supplying garment colors and PMS callouts matters far more.
How big can a screen print be?
Our standard maximum image area is 12.5″ × 16″, which covers full fronts and backs on adult garments. Oversize and all-over printing is a different process – ask before designing around it.
What resolution do you need for a photorealistic print?
300 DPI at the size it will print. A 300 DPI file at 4 inches wide is a 100 DPI file at 12 inches wide – resolution only counts at output size.
Send your art, get real pricing today
Attach whatever you have – final files or a phone photo of a sketch – and we will tell you what it needs and what the run costs, the same business day. For full capabilities, minimums and turnaround, see our contract screen printing page.