T-shirt design looks blurry in product's preview

[SweetTees]

Hi everyone,

I am having trouble with t-shirts - my products do not get a clear preview with the RealView technology. Here are the two most problematic cases:

https://www.zazzle.co.uk/cute_white_t_shirt_for_girlfriend_bride_bridesmaid-235105322861679929

https://www.zazzle.co.uk/women_t_shirt_on_my_way_to_you_driver_in_love-235251860781762280

The designs look really blurry - there is no way that anyone will buy them with this preview.

I have a 3rd product where the design image is larger, and the preview is just barely acceptable:
https://www.zazzle.co.uk/cute_black_white_t_shirt_girlfriend_boyfriend-235215510658291610.

Do you get this kind of problem too?

My main questions are:

a) Is it be possible for me to upload an extra image of the product for display in the preview? If so, how?

b) Assuming the issue of the preview can be overcome, how can I check in advance if the print will come out well? The products are pricy enough that I would prefer to get feedback from the platform's experts/experienced creators before ordering.

I would also feel more comfortable clarifying these points before disseminating the products.

Thanks in advance for reading and for any guidance that you might be able provide!

P.s. - I'm new to zazzle and to t-shirt making. I'm loving the possibility to quickly develop different new products using a single design. ; )

[PenguinPower · Accepted solution]

They are perhaps a bit small to see fine detail - but, they do not look blurry to me either. They appear to be previewing the same as any others. 

[JerryLambert]

None of those examples appear blurry to me. In fact, they look very sharp.

Are you sure that your browser isn't zoomed? 

[SweetTees]

Hi Jerry,

That is really odd! The designs on the "t-shirt previews" appear blurry to me in Firefox, Chrome and Opera, regardless of whether I zoom-in or not. I am speaking of the two initial links in my post above, the "problematic" cases (in the 3rd link above the design-preview is acceptable, as mentioned).

Thanks for for looking into it in any case!

[PenguinPower · Accepted solution]

They are perhaps a bit small to see fine detail - but, they do not look blurry to me either. They appear to be previewing the same as any others. 

[SweetTees]

Thanks! If these previews are what is possible, I guess my design is not ideal for this type of product in online sale. I will try to improve it : ) 

[JerryLambert]

Zazzle tries to emulate an accurate rendition of what the final printed product will actually look like. So, the product images will never be as sharp as what you see in the design tool. 

Your design is fine. Red compression does indeed cause a terrible blur on the internet. The effect will get worse the more the image is compressed or expanded. That might be why the same image looks less blurry when the design is larger. Unfortunately this is a consequence of digital encoding caused by chroma subsampling. It isn't limited to Zazzle. It is a digital anomaly.

Also the 3rd example is cropped properly while the 1st example is not. I would suggest that for the smaller design area, use a smaller image file that is cropped properly. Resize any image with red in it to fit the product design area without needing to make it larger or smaller once applied to the product. This will reduce the amount of subsampling. 

[SweetTees]

Thanks so much for the info Jerry! This is all new to me, it will take some trial and error to get it right. 

Do you know what is the width x height of the Zazzle's print area on t-shirts is, so that I can best prepare the design-images for upload avoiding compression/subsampling? I searched for this info before but was not able to find it. I guess the values would be different for Man's, Woman's, Child's t-shirt...

[JerryLambert · Accepted solution]

Zazzle's guide files for shirts are 150 ppi and 12X14 inches (1800X2100 pixels) vertically or 14X12 (2100X1800) horizontally. I usually save PNG files at 300 ppi though. 

Here is the page with all of Zazzle's guide files. It has a search function so you can quickly find the product guide file you need. 

Red is tricky. You might need to play around with the sizes and resolutions when using red. A big aspect of the learning curve here is trail and error. 

[SweetTees]

Awesome, many thanks Jerry! This is a bit of a hectic week for me but I'll start experimenting with the size guide files over the weekend. Yes, I'll stick to the 300 ppi too : )

[SweetTees]

Hi everyone,

Following Jerry's valuable tip of Zazzle's template sizes, I replaced the original image in my most problematic t-shirt with an image with exactly 1800X2100 pixels (shirt vertical) containing my design so the platform would not resize/resample my image. I tried a file with 150 ppi (in line with the Zazzle's guidelines) and another with 300 ppi. To be honest, I did not much improvement in comparison with the preview of the original version I had uploaded.

So I opted for a hybrid solution combining Jerry's info and I also increased a little the size of my design within the 1800X2100 pixels frame minimize the small detail, in line with the feedback from PrenguinPower. I ended up settling with the 300ppi as it seemed slightly better than the 150ppi version. To be honest, this did not fix it completely - the preview of my design still looks blurry to me - but it is a bit better.

Many thanks to both PenguinPower and Jerry for the helpful insights!

P.s. - If you are curious about the end result, here is the current version of the t-shirt (after editing I clicked Done - this updated the product in my private area but it does not seem to have taken effect in the public store front, hope the link works for you): https://www.zazzle.co.uk/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_shirt?dz=0574fb38-4bdf-4393-9573-3319eb7525a2&style=ladies...

[thenameeoftaste]

P.s. - If you are curious about the end result, here is the current version of the t-shirt (after editing I clicked Done - this updated the product in my private area but it does not seem to have taken effect in the public storefront, hope the link works for you):

https://www.zazzle.co.uk/pd/spp/pt-zazzle_shirt?dz=0574fb38-4bdf-4393-9573-3319eb7525a2&check=ladies...