Quick, Profitable Tips to Fix Bad Art Files

Nothing slows down sampling, approvals and production more than bad artwork. Often the problem starts with the client; here's some tips to save them from themselves.
July 1, 2008

You can sometimes get away with using a low-resolution image if you keep the print size small (left). Blow up the same file and you get a blurry, pixelated print.

By Dane Clement

Decorators are presented with poor-quality artwork on a regular basis and asked to put it on a shirt. Examples can range from a bitmapped image created in Microsoft Word to a dark, fuzzy photo of a child with glowing red eyes. Many customers have no understanding of what resolution is and why you can't use their 72-dpi photo.

Some artwork may be beyond salvation, but there are a few tips and tricks you can employ to make a poor-quality image better, or at least acceptable to your client. This isn't about learning how to use Adobe Photoshop to improve photography. Most decorators do not have the time and can't charge enough to spend up to three hours optimizing a photo.

These tips are quick and easy to use, and they're always the same on any image file. Some of them will take less than a minute.

Fixing Bad Art
What is bad art? So many businesses are diversified these days, with screen printers offering digital garment, dye-sublimation and large-format printing for instance, that bad art can be a multitude of things. It could simply be a bad design, a layout with no continuity or balance, or one in which the colors don't work well together.

Maybe it's a really bad photo. If the colors are muddy, dull and contaminated, the final execution of the print will be terrible. Maybe someone wants a photo of something on a shirt, banner or mug. The problem, though, is the photo they give you is very dark or too light to work with. If you just took what they had and put it on a shirt, it would look even worse. You need to fix the things that are given to you so that the final product will look as good as possible.

Some things go far beyond bad "art" but, as I will explain later, sometimes getting art that is beyond bad can work in your favor and become a way to help you capture a new customer.

Where does bad art originate?
Usually we get bad art from our customers, but not always. They know what they want (sometimes) but don't know what we need from them in order for us to achieve it. Often times they bring us a small .jpg file they found on the Internet. This scenario almost always is a disaster. The image file is usually too small with not enough resolution to print properly. Not to mention the possible copyright problems involved if we use something like this.

If you get art like this, it's best to reject it outright. Chances are it will take forever to fix — if it can be fixed at all. Determining if it's fixable depends on how small the image's print size is and how low the resolution is. In other words, how much do you need to enlarge the image to get it to the size needed? One possible fix is to enlarge it only slightly and use other elements to finish out the image. For instance, use text or logos as the main focal point of a design that incorporates the smaller .jpg image as a secondary element. This way you may be able to keep it smaller and produce a better print of the overall design.

Another technique to fix a small, low-res image is to try enlarging it in 10% increments. This works better than just punching in the final resolution size and dimensions you want to get to in one large step.

Once you enlarge the image, you should convert the image to Lab color (Image > Mode > Lab Color). Select the Lightness channel, then, from the top menu, select Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask and sharpen the image. When you sharpen images this way, you sharpen just the detail of the image, not the color, so you will avoid any color halos or color contamination.

Sometimes bad art is our fault. If we're too busy, for instance, and we don't spend enough time on a piece, we can create bad art by default. Usually, the problem is not that we're spending too little time working on the piece, it's because we don't spend enough time "thinking" about the piece before we start making changes.

So much can be gained by spending a few minutes thinking about what we need to create. We can determine what will or will not work with the design before we waste time later and realize something is wrong once we're well into it. We can determine color schemes to use, other images to use, and all the text and other elements we need to include in a complete shirt design.

Spending three minutes doing simple thumbnail sketches will help us determine the balance, proportion and layout of a composition that works. Then, once we have the basic plan of the design, we can execute it in much less time. The biggest waste of time happens when we simply open a bad art file in the computer onto a big white page and just start pushing elements and pixels around without a plan. Plan ahead and save time in the end.

FIXING BAD ART
To fix bad art, we need to determine what is making it "bad art" in the first place. We need to study and analyze the image. Is it a bad layout? Does the composition work? Is it in balance? Are the colors used working well together? What kind of art is it: vector art or photographic (raster) art? How will we be printing the final image: screen printing, direct to garment or sublimating? The answers to these questions will determine the next step in fixing the art.

NEW BUSINESS FROM BAD ART
As long as you aren't the one creating bad art, you can benefit from others who do. One way to try to grow your business is to look at various images/prints your competition is using. Find a customer using a design that you consider bad art. Study what they have and create something better. Then present a sample to the potential customer. Go the extra mile and actually print a shirt, don't just show them a comp of the design. When I had my shop in New Orleans, every time I tried this, I left the meeting with business.

Do something that the guy that has the job right now can't do. Upgrade the design, try a couple of more colors or a simulated process type of look. Wow the customer. Show them why you are the better choice. Chances are your competition's only recourse will be to try to go cheaper with his price. A really strong, quality design often will win out.

It's up to you to inform your customers on what you need to help create the best image possible. The more time you take in the beginning either educating your customer or setting up a new image yourself, the quicker and easier it will be for you to create a better piece in the end.

Dane Clement, well-known for his expertise in computer graphics and color separations, works as an application specialist at SPSI in Minneapolis. Dane also is the founder of Great Dane Graphics, a supplier of high-quality stock artwork. For more information or to comment on this article, contact Dane via greatdanegraphics.com.

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