Tips For Success With Dye Sub Printing
We love Dye Sub! Not only for its amazing color reproduction and the fact it is better for the environment than other printing methods, but also for it's ease of use when printing.
You may not be familiar with dye sub, but these basic tips below will help ensure your final product will be out of this world!
Text files no smaller than .25"
During the dye sublimation process the ink is converted to a gas inside the heat press and permanently dyes the fabric. Due to this "gassing out" we don't recommend the text in any of your graphics be any smaller than 1/4" (.25") tall. Any smaller and you run the potential of tiny text being fuzzy and hard to read.
Proper file resolutions
Making sure your files are set to full print size at 150dpi will make sure your images and text are crisp, clean and pop right off the fabric. Read more about artwork resolution here and general art guidelines here.
Include Pantones for most consistent color
We are very proud of our color! Most of the time we print files "as is" and they are reproduced with incredible accuracy to our client's expectation with no need for color matching services.
In the event color matching on your job is a concern, we recommend assigning a Pantone C or Pantone U swatch to your vector artwork. *Note: there is a Color Matching Fee per color.
You can read more about Color Matching here.
Include more bleed than you think you need
Due to the high temperatures used during production, fabric shrink and stretch are common characteristics of dye sublimation printing. In order to best compensate for these factors and still provide what's needed for sewing and finishing, please reference the following bleed recommendations.
• Designing a custom project? We recommend providing at least 1"-2" bleed all sides on smaller jobs and 3"-4" bleed all sides on larger items.
• Designing for a standard product? No extra bleed is needed as all the templates on our website take care of all the necessary bleed for you!