Official Merch Factory Print Preparation Standard

How to Submit Artworkfor Flawless Printing

Get premium, retail-quality prints on custom apparel and cardstock accessories. Follow this definitive technical guide to prepare your graphic files in seconds.
File spec at a glance
File type

PNG

Transparent background. JPG and SVG are blocked.

Resolution

300 DPI

Minimum 250 DPI. Sharper files are fine.

Largest upload

25 MB

Up to 60 megapixels per image.

Colour

RGB

We convert to the printer profile for you.

Smallest text

8 pt

On cardstock hangtags and packins.

The 4 Pillars of Print-Ready Design

Avoid printing errors, delay approvals, or blurry finishes. Memorize these four basic rules.

PNG Format Only

SVGs and JPGs are blocked. High-resolution transparent PNG is the required standard for digital textile printing.

300 DPI Is the Target

Size your canvas for about 300 dots per inch. Below 250 the print looks soft and cannot be ordered; sharper files are reduced to 300 automatically.

Transparent (No White Box)

Remove all solid background blocks. Otherwise, the printer will lay a heavy rubbery square direct on your garment.

8pt Minimum Fonts

Cardstock hangtags and packins absorb ink heavily. Thin serifs or fonts below 8pt will bleed and smudge.

Visual DOs & DONTs Comparison

The industrial printheads will transfer exactly what is inside your graphic. Ensure your layers are setup correctly.

Transparent PNG (What Works)

🦖

LOGO ONLY
Clean Edges

Only Your Design Prints

When you remove the background block from your art files, the DTG/DTF nozzles spray ink strictly onto your graphic outline. The garment color shows through all empty areas, creating a highly professional, soft, premium texture.

Solid Background Box (What Fails)

🦖

LOGO ONLY
Ugly Canvas Box

Solid Rectangles will Print

Uploading standard JPEGs or design screenshots leaves a solid white, black, or grey background bounding box from your canvas. The printer will overlay a heavy, thick rubbery square block right onto your custom clothing.

Semi-Transparency (What Fails)

🦖

SOFT SHADOW
Messy White Halo

Glows & Shadows Will Turn White

Garment printers lay a solid white ink layer under your colors first. Semi-transparent pixels (shadows, neons, or glowing brush strokes) are printed as solid white, leaving a messy white haze around your graphic. Keep edges solid.
Ghosting effect illustration showing how semi-transparent designs print poorly on dark garments due to the white underbase
THE PRINTING TRAP

Why Semi-Transparency & Glows Fail on Fabric

Industrial textile printers (both DTG and DTF) must lay down a solid, opaque white ink underbase on custom garments before spraying color layers on top. This is what makes your colored designs look vibrant on deep fabric tones.

If your design contains semi-transparent pixels (such as soft drop shadows, radial outer glows, neons fading to transparent, or faded low-opacity brush strokes), the printer interprets those fading pixels as a instruction to print a solid white underbase dot. The result is a messy, washed-out ghostly white haze outline or halo around your print.

DESIGN RESOLUTION MATH

Why DPI Matters: Pixels vs. Inches

Digital screens display artboard resolutions using pixels. Textile printers transfer designs based on physical dimensions (inches). The translator between these two worlds is DPI (Dots Per Inch).

For premium, high-density apparel prints, we recommend a target of 300 DPI (250 is the minimum we accept; anything above 300 is reduced to 300 when you save). If you upload a tiny image and stretch it to a large size, the pixels get spread sparse, creating jagged block margins.

📐 Recommended Canvas Resolution Cheat Sheet

Left Chest Pocket (4" × 4")

Standard brand branding
1200 × 1200 px

Standard A4 Area (8.3" × 11.7")

Medium front print size
2500 × 3500 px

Large Chest / Back (12" × 16")

Oversized streetwear designs
3600 × 4800 px

Max DTF Roll Width (22" × 24")

Jumbo sleeves or all-overs
6600 × 7200 px
Interactive Sandbox Tool

DPI & Sizing Interactive Simulator

Toggle design sizes and file resolutions below. See how your artwork will render on fabric in real-time before you submit it for printing.

⚡ Visual Presets (One-Click Setup)


1. Target Print Size on Soft Fabric (Inches)

PRINT WIDTH:
inches
PRINT HEIGHT:
inches

2. Canvas Export Resolution (Pixels)

Min 100px — Max 12000px

Min 100px — Max 12000px

🎯 Calculated Resolution Status

300

DPI

Excellent: print-ready
Low (72)Target (300)Dense (450+)

👕 Real-time Print Quality Preview

🦖

DPI DEMO
Size: 10" × 10"

Your Custom Sizing Rules:

🎯 IF YOU WANT THIS SIZE ON FABRIC:

Physical Area: 10 × 10 inches


Export a PNG of at least: 3000 × 3000 px

📤 IF YOU UPLOAD THIS PNG FILE:

Your image: 3000 × 3000 px


Max physical print size: 10 × 10 inches

How to Export Clean Files in 4 Major Tools

Follow these simple configurations to export flawless transparent PNGs from your software.

  • 1. Click Share in the top-right corner of the canvas.

  • 2. Select Download from the drop-down menu.

  • 3. Set the file format strictly to PNG.

  • 4. Check the "Transparent background" option (requires Canva Pro).

  • 5. Click Download.

  • 1. Hide or delete the Background color layer (represented by a grey/white checkerboard).

  • 2. Go to File in the top menu, then Export, and select Export As...

  • 3. Set the Format option to PNG.

  • 4. Ensure the "Transparency" checkbox is ticked.

  • 5. Click Export All and save your file.

  • 1. Go to File, click Export, and select Export As...

  • 2. Set the Format drop-down menu to PNG.

  • 3. Check the "Use Artboards" option.

  • 4. In PNG Options, set the Resolution slider to High (300 ppi).

  • 5. Set Background Color specifically to Transparent.

  • 6. Click OK.

  • 1. Visit photopea.com and open your design file.

  • 2. Delete or hide any solid background block layers.

  • 3. Select File in the top navigation, and click Export As → PNG.

  • 4. Ensure the Quality slider is set to 100%.

  • 5. Click Save to download.

THE PRO WORKFLOW

Design inside "Saved Products" First

For the most accurate placement, fastest production time, and zero ordering mistakes, always create and prepare your design catalogs inside the Saved Products panel on your merchant dashboard first.

Our automated system runs deep background checks on your canvas DPI, transparency margins, and file health, ensuring what you see on screen is exactly what hits our industrial inkjets. It eliminates scaling and crop errors during checkout.

1. True-to-Scale Previews

Saved products reflect exact millimeter sizing coordinates directly mapped to our print jigs.

2. Immediate Auto-Validation

Instantly alerts you if uploaded graphics fall below our 300 DPI retail standard target.

3. One-Click Ordering & Linking

Allows you to push designs to Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce or order bulk samples in seconds.
Merch Factory saved products custom design dashboard panel preview
Custom necklabel placement and sizing instructions on apparel
BRAND IDENTITY

Branded Necklabel Guidelines

Replace the manufacturer's tags with your own private label neck printing. For clean production, maximum reusability, and seamless inventory management, follow these guidelines.

🚫 Avoid Writing Sizes on Your Graphics

Do not include size indicators (S, M, L, XL, etc.) in your necklabel artwork files. Keeping the design size-free is the professional industry standard.

🏷️ Separate Sizing Tags are Pre-Installed

All our clothing products already include small, discrete physical size tags. If by any chance a product does not have one pre-sewn, our warehouse team sews/pastes a size tag right next to your custom necklabel.

🔄 Maximum Sizing Reuse & Direct Saved Products Sourcing

Not having sizes in the necklabel graphic allows you to reuse the exact same necklabel design across S to XXL of that product. This dramatically simplifies ordering and lets you add products directly from Saved Products collections without creating separate designs for each size!
Custom handtag and cardstock packin design guidelines
CARDSTOCK PRINTING

Cardstock & Hangtag Guidelines

Custom cardboard packins and hangtags require strict monochrome rendering. Cardstock absorbs ink heavily, causing fine details or colors to smudge. Follow these specifications for perfect legibility.

⚫ Pure Black & White Only

Always design using pure black and white solids. Colorful graphics are automatically converted to grayscale, resulting in muddy grey tones.

🔍 8pt Minimum Font Size

Text smaller than 8pt will bleed and merge into the cardboard fibers. Use clean, bold sans-serif or block serif typography for brand details.

⚠️ Vector / High-Contrast Linework

Avoid photos, gradients, drop shadows, or fine script fonts. High-contrast vector linework ensures clean edges.

Frequently Asked Design Questions

Find answers to common merchant printing inquiries and clear up doubts.

JPG/JPEG and SVG files are blocked in the editor to prevent background printing and rendering/alignment bugs. JPG/JPEG files do not support alpha channels (transparency) and always contain a solid background block, resulting in an ugly rubbery square on your garment. SVG files often contain font/rendering mismatches across different systems. Only the high-resolution transparent PNG format preserves transparency and layout specifications perfectly on our printers.

To make colors pop on dark shirts, industrial printers lay down a solid white rubbery underbase layer first. If your design has shadows or glows that fade to transparency, the printer renders this semi-transparency as a solid white underbase, creating an ugly, hazy white outline or halo around your print. Always ensure all graphics have solid, 100% opaque edges.

Screens use RGB color profiles, which project light directly into your eyes and can display extremely bright neon tones. Fabric printers use CMYK inks that reflect light. While some visual deviation is natural, Merch Factory uses an advanced ICC color management pipeline to automatically translate your uploaded RGB assets into fabric print CMYK channels with roughly 99% color matching accuracy.

Cardboard stock absorbs inks differently than soft cotton. Thin serifs, decorative cursive elements, and fonts below 8pt will bleed and merge, rendering them completely unreadable. Strictly use clean, bold sans-serif or block serif fonts at a minimum size of 8pt.

Ready to design your custom brand catalog?

Launch the Merch Creator