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General, Contours, Tracing, Design Help, File Formats, Installation, Print Resolutions, Vinyl FAQ

print resolutions

Our plotter can produce print resolutions in excess of 1000 dpi. If you are sending us a raster image that is to be printed then the resolution becomes important for clarity. For people sending us vector files we will print at ~700dpi unless otherwise directed.

For most applications 1000dpi is overkill and will result in massively bloated files that can be hard for you to send. Therefore we suggest that our clients reduce the dpi to more manageable levels.

Here are some rules-of-thumb for raster images:

Purpose Suggested DPI
High quality output onto photopaper 600
Highly detailed or small stickers 600
General signage and/or stickers 150 to 300
Banners (see note below) 75 to 300

We don't reccomend sending banner data as raster images because the files become massive very quickly owing to the overall size of the project. If you can send it, we'll happily print it, but you've been cautioned! Consider using vector files for this purpose.

Keep in mind that compression techniques can have either no effect on image clarity or they can destory it entirely. This is why we do not reccomend sending heavily compressed jpg or gif images. Use tif files (with or without LZW compression) if print quality is to be maintained.