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I have a couple of designs that are in 300 dpi. I always take the design, put it in photoshop (with a page 16x20) line it all up, save it, then import it into Fastartist (so it can handle the underbasing). Usually this technique works great and I have no problems. But for some reason I have a bunch of designs from a customer and after importing them into fast artist all the edges are pixelated, you can see little pixels of whites around the edges, yet you cant when your viewing the image at 100% on photoshop. The image was originally 300dpi, and I had to actually shrink it to fix size it correctly.
I have to push this order out today yet I cant get past this problem. Anyone have any ideas?
No drop shadow, the images are all in PSD format at 300 dpi. I get on the customers images and then also on their images that are just text (text is an image not an actual font). I take their PSD layers, send them to my PSD template for my shirtboard, size it up (they are much larger so I shrink them down), align them, merge all layers and then save and import to fast artist.
I just dont get it, it looks great in photoshop then Fast Artist botches them up.
I have noticed that fastartist does not always give the most accurate view of my image especially if I am using effects from photoshop like outline but when I print the design it is fine. Have you already tried printing the shirt?
Yeah, I always ignore what it looks like in fast artist and just print it because their interpritation of it is usually way off of what the machine actually prints. But I have printed a few now, this one coming out the machine I vconverted to png (so I can keep the transparency) and its coming out now and its also jagged. Not sure what is going on, if anyone has any ideas let me know. Ill post here if I solve it myself.
Hi Adam,
Make sure there are no adjustment layers, or Channel Masks in the photoshop file.
Also, convert to RGB, merge visible layers, remove hidden layers, and crop to the exact print size at your desired resolution.
Also, when saving the PSD file, make sure you're not embedding any color profiles, and that color management is set to OFF. For some reason, FastArtist is fickle.
Might be best to save as a png file anyway...
Hope this helps!
I found out the problem, for some reason when importing the customers psd into my template psd it was getting screwed up. Customers psd was at 300 dpi but image was only 6", he wanted it 12 in. But when I imported it into my 16x20 300dpi template it was twice the size of my template and so I shurnk it down and it looked correct. idk some kind of bug or hiccup. very wierd, it should of imported much smaller.
anyways how do i shut off color management? i have been trying to find it but cant.
anyways how do i shut off color management? i have been trying to find it but cant.
Which version of Photoshop are you using?
In PHOTOSHOP 7 through CS2 -> Go to Edit -> Color Settings
Drop the "Settings" drop down box to: Color Management Off
You may want to make a check off list for yourself for preparing files to go to your DTG machine.
Also, I always do a mini-sample print about 1/4 the size of the original to make sure colors are looking good and that things are the way they should be. Keep a few extra pretreated shirts laying around that you can just throw on before you start your job.
The problem sounds like Anti aliasing,
If you type text (or other vector type objects) in PhotoShop then it applies an anti aliasing to the edges (zoom in and you will see) edges of the text are not sharp, but use a blend of pixels that go from the text color to the surronding color.
If for example you had red text on a white background and you knockout the white background the anti alias pixels (red to white blends) remain and get underbase and appears as a white halo.
You need to remove these pixels.
You can use KnockMeWhiteOut script we provide in PhotoShop for this. Or make sure anti aliasing is off when you type the text or remove it with the magic wand.
I do all my work in Photoshop and then save to PNG with a transparent background to bring it into FastARTIST. When I bring a PSD into FastARTIST, I usually have problems more times than not. One thing I have learned that causes the same symptoms you describe as well is; if you have PSD or PNG file with translucent (by translucent I mean see through) edges that fade into the transparent background, you can get the same problem. FastARTIST, more times than not, will incorrectly interpret the translucent parts of the file. How I solve this is create a solid color underbase inside of Photoshop of the whole image so there is opaque (solid) color under the whole image. I pick a color, usually black, that keeps the color of the translucent parts of the image correct. Then I save it to PNG. FastARTIST has no problem trying to interpret the PNG when imported because it no longer has any translucent areas.
PSD shouldnt be a problem, you need to make sure that you have a single layer (with transparency), so collapse all the other layers and also make sure you have maximise PSD compatability on (in Preferences - File handling in PhotoShop). If you still have a PSD file problem, please send it tome.
When you bring the image into FastARTIST, are you using the create underbase from the transparency settings or are you selecting no to this and using the wizard ?.
When the underbase is created directly from the transparency (best method), areas that are partially transparent (for example 50%) will get 50% white ink, this way you can blend your design into the shirt.
You can use the gamma adjustment to make 50% more or less ink (works the same way as levels does in PhotoShop).