The customer sent a screenshot, not the artwork
A screenshot is a photograph of a screen's pixel grid. It arrives at the resolution of the display it was taken on, usually with interface elements around it and compression baked in. Some of that is recoverable, and one part of it never is.
| Phone screenshot, typical logo area | 400-900 px wide |
|---|---|
| That area at 300 DPI | 3.4-7.6 cm of clean print width |
| Desktop screenshot, typical logo area | 300-600 px wide |
| Text height that survives DTF | roughly 4 mm and above at print size |
| Recoverable by cropping alone | interface chrome, address bars, menu labels |
Crop before you measure
The screenshot's pixel dimensions are not the artwork's dimensions. Crop to the artwork itself first, then measure that crop. A 1290 px phone screenshot with a 500 px logo in it is a 500 px logo, and the safe print width follows from 500, not from 1290.
What is recoverable and what is not
A flat screen background can be keyed out, compression noise around edges can be cleaned, and the crop can be enlarged. What cannot be recovered is detail the screen never showed — a logo displayed at 200 px was rendered at 200 px, and no operation returns the vector precision behind it.
- Recoverable: flat background, edge noise, stray interface pixels
- Sometimes recoverable: soft edges on illustrations, through model-based upscaling
- Never recoverable: letterform precision in small text, fine hairlines, gradients crushed by compression
The message that gets the right file
Asking for "a better file" produces another screenshot. Naming the file type works: ask for the AI, EPS, PDF or SVG the designer delivered, or the original PNG export from the tool the design was made in.
FAQ
- Can a screenshot be printed on DTF at all?
- Yes, at the width its cropped pixel dimensions support. The failure case is not printing a screenshot; it is printing one at a size the pixels do not cover.
- Does upscaling fix a screenshot?
- It can rebuild plausible edges on illustration-like content. On small text it redraws letterforms, which is a different word on the garment — so text needs verifying after the operation, not assuming.
- Why does the text look fine on screen but bad in print?
- A screen shows roughly 72-160 pixels per inch and refreshes; print holds around 300 per inch and stays still. Text that reads comfortably in a browser is often below half the resolution a transfer needs.