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In printing terminology, the bleed is the extra margin on a print product that is meant to be trimmed off when the product is trimmed to its final size. Bleed basically means that the color and graphics on a product "bleed off the page" to ensure continuity of the color to the edge of your product.

A full bleed is required for all print-ready files. For example, if you are ordering a metal print with a size of 20" x 30" your final file should be 20.3" x 30.3" a bleed of 0.3" is added in height and width.

The Safe Zone is the area where all the critical elements (text, images, logos, etc.) must be placed, so that they are not trimmed off when the product is trimmed to the final size. Please make sure to remain within the Safe Zone, as elements on or out of the Safe Zone may be cut off during printing or trimming. Try to keep everything you want in the image 1" in from each side.

Borders are not recommended due to shifts when pressing your artwork. If your product is slightly shifted when setting up the metal prints, borders may appear uneven. Especially for small products such as coasters, even half a millimeter of  shift may cause the borders to look uneven.

We require that you provide us with print-ready digital files in RGB color mode. Provide all black and white artwork in grayscale color mode. We do not accept any other color mode.

RGB indicates Red, Green, and Blue and is primarily used for electronic and photography purposes. These 3 colors combined in various percentages create any color in the visible spectrum. Various products use RGB because it offers the widest range of colors.

The following formats are acceptable for uploads: TIF, .TIFF, .EPS, .AI, .PSD, .JPG, .PNG, .PDF. Recommended: To reduce file size, please upload in .jpg format. For all other file formats, ensure all layers are flattened.

.TIF (Tagged Image File) - High-quality graphics format that is often used for storing multi-colored images. Supports layers, multiple pages, raster images, vector images, lossy compression, and lossless compression.

.TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) - High-quality graphics format that is often used for storing multi-colored images. Supports layers, multiple pages, raster images, vector images, lossy compression, and lossless compression.

.EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) - PostScript file used primarily in the transfer of images to different operating systems.

.AI (Adobe Illustrator file) - Vector graphics file that uses paths connected by points. These are great for mugs especially if its text only.

.PSD (Photoshop Document) - Image file created by Adobe Photoshop; supports various types of Photoshop image options, including image layers, adjustment layers, etc. We recommend that .PSD files be flattened prior to being uploaded.

.JPG (Image Compression File) - Compressed image format that uses lossy compression; commonly used for storing realistic photos (digital photos), since it is able to compress substantially with minimal loss in image quality.

.PNG (Portable Network Graphics) - A bitmapped image format with lossless data compression. Gradients come out smoother and do not have the distortions that may appear in a .JPG. Used mainly for archiving files. Does not support CMYK.

.PDF (Portable Document Format) - The most preferred file format to be set in pre-press quality. Ideal for viewing on multiple computers, because it preserves the formatting, fonts, and other elements within the document on different computers, as well as when it is printed.

There really isn't a difference between a .TIF and a .TIFF, or a .JPG and a .JPEG, except that one uses an extension with three letters, the other with four. The files are the same, and will remain the same even if you change the file from the three-letter extension to the four-letter extension. For example, if you change a .TIF to .TIFF, the file will still open up the same; the only difference will be in the file name. 

The two different file extensions for the same file type derived from Windows, which required files to have a file extension of no more than three letters. Thus, the original .TIFF files were abbreviated to .TIF to meet this requirement. Macintosh platforms however, did not limit the file extensions to three letters, since the longer the extension meant the more descriptive, which is why Macs use file types with four extensions.

Maximum file size for uploads: 500MB (megabytes) per file.

Before uploading your file, make sure to check the image size. In Photoshop, click on Image > Image Size, and proportion your image correctly. 

Recommended: To reduce file size, please upload in .jpg format. For all other file formats, ensure all layers are flattened.

Resolution is also known as dpi (dots per inch) or ppi (pixels per inch). It indicates the number of colored dots or pixels that make up one image. The higher the dots per inch/pixels per inch, the greater the resolution and the clearer the resulting final print will be.

LPI, or lines per inch, is a measurement of resolution that uses a halftone screen. LPI measures how close together the lines are in this halftone grid. The higher the lines per inch (or the closer the lines are together), the better and clearer the image will be. In order to determine the appropriate image resolution needed for print, the combination of your printer's DPI and the required LPI must be observed. Whereas the DPI determines the number of dots per inch, the LPI is also needed in order to determine the frequency of the lines containing the dots, per inch of the halftone grid. Once these two elements are calculated, the correct resolution can be determined. The image usually must have 1.5 to 2 times as many dots per inch as lines per inch. GotPrint prints with 200 lpi for high-quality, beautiful, final prints. 

In order for an image to print correctly, all file formats must be submitted at a resolution of 300 dpi at 100% of the final print size. When file resolution is lower than 300 dpi, the final print will have a substantial drop in the image quality.