What size should my t-shirt design be?

For a standard adult front print, 11 x 14 inches at 300 DPI covers most cases. Youth sizes and left-chest prints are smaller. If you tell us the print area your supplier specifies, we'll size to it exactly.

Do you prepare files for DTF specifically?

Yes. DTF wants a high-resolution file with clean, fully-opaque edges and correct transparency, because the white underbase is generated from your alpha channel. A soft or fringed edge becomes a visible white outline on the garment — so that's exactly what we fix.

Can you make my design work on both light and dark shirts?

Usually. Sometimes it needs a small adjustment — an outline, or a slightly different value in one area — to hold up on both. We'll do it and tell you what we changed.

T-Shirt Design Cleanup

T-shirt design cleanup, prepared for how you actually print

Most rejected t-shirt files fail for the same four reasons. We fix all four and size the artwork for your specific print method.

Start an order — from $3 How it works

The same artwork after cleanup: sharp edges and genuine transparency — Illustrative example. Drag to compare.

Artwork before cleanup: blurry, jagged edges and an opaque background box — Illustrative example. Drag to compare.

What we fix

If any of this sounds familiar, we can help

Resolution too low
A design that looks fine on screen and pixelates the moment it's printed at 11 inches wide.
The white box
Flattened transparency that prints as a visible rectangle on every garment that isn't white.
Wrong dimensions
Artwork that isn't sized to the print area, so the printer scales it and softens every edge doing it.
Colour that dies on dark fabric
Values chosen against a white background that go muddy once there's a black shirt underneath.

Getting a t-shirt graphic past your printer

Every print method wants something slightly different. DTF and DTG want a high-resolution raster file with clean transparency at the exact print size. Screen printing wants separable flat colours, usually as vector. Vinyl cutting wants closed vector paths and no gradients at all. Sublimation wants full-bleed artwork with the colour profile in mind.

Sending the same PNG to all of them is why files come back rejected. It's rarely that the design is bad — it's that the file was never prepared for the process it's going into.

Tell us your print method at checkout and we prepare the file for that method specifically, rather than handing you a generic export and hoping.

What you get back

Print-ready file sized to your print area
Genuine transparency, no background box
Adjusted for dark garments where needed
Format matched to DTF, DTG, screen, sublimation or vinyl

From $3 per design

Start an order

Questions

Common questions

Not covered here? Send us the file and we'll tell you straight whether we can help.

Ask us first

Related services

DesignFix works with existing designs and artwork. We modify, clean, refine, vectorize, or update existing artwork. Completely new artwork may require a separate quote.

Send us the design you've been avoiding.

Upload it, tell us what's wrong with it, and get it back print-ready.

Fix My Design See how it works

Current workload: 2 designs in queueStandard: approximately 10 hoursRush: approximately 30–60 minutes

T-shirt design cleanup, prepared for how you actually print

If any of this sounds familiar, we can help

Resolution too low

The white box

Wrong dimensions

Colour that dies on dark fabric