How our pre-press team wants your files.

Vector first. Raster when you have to.

Screen printing wants vector — clean edges, infinite resolution, easy to convert to halftones. DTG and DTF can work from raster, but resolution and color profile still matter. Here's the bar:

Spot for screen, CMYK for DTG, never RGB to press.

Color mode determines how we separate your art for each ink. Wrong mode means we either guess or come back asking for a fixed file — both add days.

• Screen printing: Pantone Solid Coated spot channels. One channel per ink color. We mix the ink to match the Pantone book, not your monitor.
• DTG / DTF: CMYK color space, embedded ICC profile. We can match brand colors but expect ±2 ΔE variance run-to-run.
• Embroidery: Send vector with thread color callouts to the Madeira or Robison-Anton chart. We re-spec to thread inventory and confirm before stitching.
• Never: RGB files for screen printing. Convert to spot before handoff or we will, and the conversion is lossy.

Halftone setup is where most photo-print jobs fail.

Halftone screens convert continuous tone (gradients, photographs) into dot patterns the press can reproduce. Wrong line count or angle and you get moiré, dot gain, or banding. Here are our defaults:

For 4-color process or simulated process, we'll handle separation and angle math. Send the layered file with the gradients intact — don't flatten it for us.

The white underbase is its own design problem.

Printing color ink on dark fabric requires a white underbase first — otherwise the color disappears into the garment. The underbase has to be slightly smaller than the color art (a "choke") so the color doesn't bleed past the white. Choke values:

• Standard choke: 0.5pt at 50 LPI. Tighter at higher LPI, looser at lower. We'll set this in pre-press unless you've already.
• Spread: Color elements that need to overlap (think process color builds) get a 0.25pt spread to prevent register gaps.
• Black ink: Almost never needs an underbase on dark goods — we knock the white out beneath it. Saves a screen and a stroke.

Five things that send your file back to revision.

1. 01
   Live fonts not outlined

   We don't have your font. Outline before sending.
2. 02
   Effects (drop shadows, glows) live

   Rasterize at 300 DPI before saving. Live effects re-render unpredictably.
3. 03
   Embedded raster at 72 DPI

   Web-resolution image inside a vector file. Looks fine on screen, jagged at print size.
4. 04
   Hex codes instead of Pantone

   #FF6900 doesn't exist on the press. PMS 165 C does.
5. 05
   Single combined layer for multi-color art

   We need separations. Each ink color on its own layer or in its own spot channel.

File names should read like a SKU.

When 40 art files hit our pre-press inbox in a week, naming is the difference between dispatching a job in 4 hours and chasing a Slack thread for 4 days. Use this:

Version up on every change. Don't overwrite. We use the version number to confirm what's on press matches what you approved.

Where the file lives between you and us.

1. 01
   Drop the file

   Upload to your Prosper portal or attach directly in your reply to the quote thread. We don't lose files this way.
2. 02
   Pre-press review

   Our art lead opens the file, runs separation and choke, flags issues. Same business day for in-spec files, next day for revisions.
3. 03
   Strike-off proof

   We print one finished sample on your specified blank. Photograph, ship overnight, and post in-app for sign-off.
4. 04
   You approve in-app

   One-click approval triggers production. Bulk fires that hour.
5. 05
   Bulk QC photos

   First 50 prints from the run are photographed and posted to your portal. If anything looks off, we stop the press.