Sending Us Or Uploading Your Own Art?
Excellent! That makes for a great Digitally Printed Product, however, there are VERY IMPORTANT things to consider FIRST BEFORE UPLOADING OR SENDING US ART! Please read this document in full... it takes about 3 minutes to read, but will save hours of frustration!

In order for us to create a really great (Or descent) looking product, you need to be aware of GRAPHIC RESOLUTION before uploading/sending us anything! Just because your graphic may look great on your computer screen, it does not necessarily mean that it will look great on a t-shirt or other products that we offer.

GRAPHIC RESOLUTION is also known as DPI (Dots per inch) and when you use various methods for creating your art, sometimes these images are produced at 72 DPI, which is a standard size for images used on the web, however for PRINTING, your images should be in between 200 and 300 DPI.

Now, here is the big question: How did you get your art that you are planning on uploading?

Internet Images / Or Clip Art Images
If you simply found a picture on the internet, chances are likely the art is NOT at 300 DPI, it is more than likely MADE FOR THE INTERNET, which is usually made at 72 DPI. (Be careful of this - most art you simply find on the internet is copyrighted and you are responsible for getting permission to use this art). If you got the art from a clip art web site, you will need to purchase the high-resolution file from them - this is usually the largest .jpg that they will have OR (Even BETTER) get us the .eps file - you will NOT be able to open the .eps file, because you would need Adobe Illustrater installed, but none of that matters, since WE need the file. .eps files are our favorite, because they are vector-based graphics and can be resized to any size without pixelating (See photo below of pelican for an example of pixelation)

Photo - Scanned
If you are scanning a photo at 300 DPI, remember, that it can be printed just fine if you are keeping it at the same size of the photo. If you are enlarging the photo, you should scan it at larger DPI's to keep the consistency... in other words, if you want it to be twice the size, scan it at 600 DPI, etc.

Artwork Scanned
Same as Photo-Scanned above!

Photo - Digital
Most cameras these days will take pictures at a higher resolution, UNLESS you have set it at a lower resolution like 640 x 480 to save room on your memory card. Less is more does not hold true in this case! The FastStone Image Viewer that we talk about later on this page, will help you see if your photos will look good or not.

Images Created In Photoshop/CorelDraw/Etc.
OK, here we go! The best way to make an image is in one of these types of programs - you can edit photos and do all sorts of graphic wizardry in programs like this IF YOU SET THINGS UP FIRST IN THE RIGHT PLACE!!!! Setup is relatively easy... When creating a new document, simply set the size in inches as to how big you want it on the shirt. Most T-shirts we print are maxed out at 12 inches wide and 12 inches high. After you select the size, set the DPI to 300 and you are all set on a blank canvas! If you ALREADY have an image createdin Photoshop, etc. and want to see whether it will look good on a t-shirt, simply create a NEW document, following the directions we outlined above, then open the graphic you already have, drag and drop the layer of the pre-existing graphic to the new documents screen and viola! It will show you the actual print size you have... most of the time, when you do this operation, the graphic seems to shrink down to an incredibly small size... that means you need to resize it to 11 inches or so to get it to the size you want and more than likely it will be extremely blurry and pixelated, which means it's NO GOOD FOR PRINT!

Although we may want to use an image that we REALLY love and have to use, it doesn't mean that it will be fine for printing. Love has nothing to do with it. This doesn't mean we are picky people here at Fly By Night, we simply want to print out the best possible product for you and we have minimum requirements that need to be met before attempting.

Why does it matter? Well, glad you asked! Here are examples of what art would look liked printed on a t-shirt with 72 DPI and 300 DPI:

This is not an actual print on a t-shirt... T-shirts cannot hold dots as fine as this computer screen you are looking at!

As you can see, the 72 DPI picture pelican from above is a very poor quality to print on a t-shirt, etc. So the next question is this:

How do I get my custom picture to the DPI I want it, or how the heck can I find out as to what DPI the art I already have is? Excellent question, glad you asked, now here's the answer you are looking for:

The easiest way to do this is find a friend who knows their way around in Photoshop, however, if this is not possible, keep on reading:

First off, you will need a program like Photoshop, to see what your current DPI is at on the digital graphic that you have. If you do not own Photoshop or a similar graphic art program, you can use a free program like one of the following:

Fast Stone Image Viewer
You can download this for FREE! This nifty little program will help you resize your images/check your current images resolution. Download at Downloads.Com . After installing the program, MAKE SURE YOU MAKE A COPY OF THE GRAPHIC YOU ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIMENT ON!!! Open up the copy you just made and select:
EDIT>RESIZE/RESAMPLE - when the menu comes up, change the size of the picture to the size you are planning on printing it at - remember, most T-shirts are 12 inches wide/high max. (Be sure to keep the proportion of your image.. it may only be 3 inches high, but can be 12 inches wide). After this you can set the resolution to 300 dpi. After you click "OK" then click on the View menu and set it at 100%. Which pelican from above does it look like? If it looks good - you are ready to submit your graphic to us! We accept the following formats:

.JPG
.EPS
.PDF (If you are submitting a PDF, be sure it is not the Embedded Font Type.

If you have your art ready for us and are ready to UPLOAD IT - CLICK HERE.