Artwork Formats for Custom Decals

If you have your own design, for example your company logo, signature, or a special emblem, we can make this into your own bespoke waterslide decals.

Our preferred file formats for supplied artwork are listed below. Supplying artwork to these specifications will ensure best results and no further setup charges.

• ✔ PSD Photoshop File: 600dpi, actual size, separate layers for White, Black, Gold, Silver, CMYK, all fonts rasterised, transparent background (Click to download Whole, Half and Quarter page templates)
• ✔ AI Illustrator File: Must contain solely vector data with all fonts converted to paths
• ✔ PDF File: Provided it is either a 600dpi transparent background export as per the Photoshop file, or an export of a suitably created AI
• ✔ PNG File: Fine for either single colour of White, Black, Gold or Silver, or a full colour CMYK print. 600dpi, actual size, transparent background (i.e. all unprinted areas should be transparent)

Other file formats aren't good to use for a variety of reasons, such as:

• ✘ JPG: Compressed images have a lot of artefacts which lower the quality, and JPG doesn't allow for colour splitting or transparency. This will required a complete redraw before printing.
• ✘ CDR: We do not use Corel formats - please export as a universal format such as PDF.
• ✘ DXF: This format is ideal if you want us to make a custom cut inlay, but is not suitable for graphics and print. Also, in our experience it doesn't work simply exporting it to an AI format, as the export does not create the required paths or information for printing. This will require a complete redraw before printing.
• ✘ Word / Powerpoint: Both of these are containers and not suitable for us to print from. If you have an image, instead of putting it in an Office document please send us the image instead. If you would like a particular font please tell us the font and width in mm.
• ✘ Any of these in any of the good ones: A JPG boshed in to a Photoshop file does not make it usable - it is still a JPG, just in a different container.

Common issues to avoid are:

• ✘ White background: Backgrounds, i.e. any areas which don't contain design and aren't to be printed, should be transparent. Putting the design on a white background will result in either a printed white background, or mean we need to redraw the design to extract it before printing.
• ✘ Colours on the same layer: We build up special colours layer by layer, so White, Black, Gold and Silver should be drawn on separate layers, with all unprinted areas remaining transparent. CMYK full colour prints can be on a single layer - no need to split CMY and K for these.
• ✘ Fonts not rasterised or converted to vectors: You may have used fonts in your file which we do not have installed. This is fine, but to ensure the prints turn out as you expect them to please rasterise (in Photoshop) or vectorise (in Illustrator) your text before sending the file to us. This way we can deal with just the raw pixel or vector data, and it doesn't matter if we don't have the font.
• ✘ Low resolution: The quality of the print depends on the quality of the artwork, so we ask for bitmap artwork to be made at a minimum resolution of 600dpi, with the canvas at actual size. For example, if your design is 2 inches wide by 1 inch tall, we would expect the image to measure 1200 x 600dpi. 
• ✘ Enlarged to high resolution: Artwork should be created at its final resolution. Making it small and then enlarging it will not give a good quality result - detail cannot be invented.