Printify SVG Support - Vectors For Print On Demand

[@SFN-YT]

I've literally just created a spreadsheet with some of the Printify specs on and I totally missed that it says it supports SVGs - thanks for pointing it out! As for Affinity, I absolutely love it! I used Adobe years ago, but as a 'hobbyist', that monthly hit is way to much to even consider - I used to use several of the apps, making it super expensive. Re Affinity, I've only used the Desktop version, but I'd thoroughly recommend it and suggest getting the full suite if you can (the price is so good, you kinda might as well). Even if you don't think you'll use Publisher, it's great to have, because they have a feature called 'Studio Link', which lets you can jump seamlessly between all the apps, without having to open/close things as you work. Plus, the different apps support slightly different features, but as they run off the same base, Studio Link means the features are supported across the board. For example, Publisher supports tables, AD and AP don't. However, you can create a table in Publisher and drop it into AD/AP and it will work just fine. Likewise, Publisher doesn't offer symbols, but if you create symbols in Designer, they'll retain all that goodness when dropped into Publisher. How good is that?!

[@watchtowerdragon7098]

I'm all about the FreeWare - Krita for Drawing, GIMP for editing, InkScape for SVG conversion

[@P-Funk69]

great to know as i use illustrator a lot and noticed this SVG option on some items, didnt know it was for all products. i also got that creative fabrica deal also and was super psyched! ;)

[@PODinsights]

Every time I log into creative fabrica and see how many assets they have available I'm amazed by that deal!

[@aeon1379]

Thanks

[@MariaLeal-rp1ln]

Thank you so much!

[@annette2687]

Another awesome video. I love Affinity Publisher and Designer and Creative Fabrica. SVG saves so much time when you want to place a graphic on a T-Shirt and then (for example) a Tote bag. Thanks for the heads-up on Vexels' Black Friday sale. It's amazing, just not quite on my budget yet. 🙂👍

[@PODinsights]

Thank you! Glad to hear you like the Affinity software! I've been considering paying for the desktop version of Photo and Designer and try using that for a while so I might eventually be able to stop paying a monthly subscription for Photoshop because I really like the iPad version of Photo. I actually just heard there's going to be a short flash sale at Vexels this month...not sure of all the details yet but I will make a video about it if/when they send me more info. I'm guessing the BF deal is probably still going to be the biggest discount though. I'm loving Creative Fabrica too! There's so much on there I feel like I could download new stuff every day for years!

[@annette2687]

@@PODinsights So true for Creative Fabrica, I need more storage! Thanks for keeping us up to date on Vexels!

[@Mind_psychological]

Thanks bro👍

[@AI-ART-333]

I downloaded an SVG file from Canva, but even when I zoom in, it still appears pixelated. true vector file should not have any kind of pixelation

[@janvincentvillalon1538]

same problem..

[@caroltz8220]

Very helpful, thank you! Question, is there any reason you wouldn't use SVG when taking an image from Canva into Printify? (In other words, if it's a detailed image or a basic image, does that make a difference?) I was using PNG for this (as I'm used to doing that for Amazon print on demand), but the images were loading as medium resolution and becoming low resolution when I enlarged them. Would you recommend for complex and simple designs: (1) use SVG, (2) use PNG but change size in Canva (I upped it to 2.5 or 3 and then came through as high resolution, but I'm flying blind and don't really understand what it means when I enlarge) or (3) save as PDF and then convert to JPG? So sorry and thank you in advance! I feel like me understanding this key part of it will be the difference between a good product and a bad product.

[@alchemistsoundsbyninni]

thank you for the video. I got a question, so I want to make designs for exercise/gym mats, where the printing size is 7795 x 21024, so preeetty large 😅 so far that has lead me to not be able to print the design on the whole mat but just have a small one in the middle of the mat. I was thinking to just download the design I create in canva as SVG, but I am not sure if that really solves the problem? Because I read that SVG is rather appropriate for icons, logos and such, so I dont know if I have e.g. a picture of the ocean that I want to have printed all over the mat will still have high resolution when using SVG? Or is there any other way how to properly take care of this? Unfortunately, I can't enter 7795x21024 into canva as a size... I would appreciate your feedback :)

[@mericles77]

As a side note, being former Canva, Clip Studio and Affinity (V1) suite user I only recommend to go for free tools like Krita and Inkscape. One day they would unilateraly modify their terms or simply raise their prices. It is not good to get trapped them, especially as a small business. Free tools are very capable these days. I can only recommend Inkscape for vector, Krita for raster/vector and Scribus for printed media. I used to use GIMP for image processing but if you need to pick one for that, I would go with Krita. Both Krita and Scribus support the CMYK color space (GIMP is catching up too), so you can soft-proof your design against various color profiles. If you don't do that then the POD staff will do that with suboptimal results. Back to you question: Krita has quite decent raster -> vector transformation and it can export vectors in SVG. In Inkscape, you can optimize the vectors by decimating the number of nodes while retaining the original shape of the vector. Without seeing your design, I can not tell for sure. If it is more of a line art then I would probably go by reducing the original design from Canva to a limited color palette (in the CMYK profile's range) in Krita. Then vectorize the whole or just the individual shapes in Krita and export them as SVG. Then you will have the outlines of the original design vectorized. However, the space between the outlines will be empty. Now, you need to fill in the shapes which is the most time consuming part of the process. If the shapes are closed or nearly closed you can use Krita's Colorize Mask feature to fill in the gaps. For this you can copy + paste the optimized shapes from Inkscape to Krita as vector layers or as multiple vectors on the same layer to give you nearly the origial outlines. Then use the aforementioned Colorize Mask to fill in the gaps. Then with the Contiguous Selection tool you can pick each of the color areas and vectorize them one by one then export them as SVG and import them into Inkscape. Hopefully there won't be any gaps between the outlines and the color blobs. If there are, then adjust them manually. At this point, you will have a printing proof vector image closely resembling the original Canva design. Now, convert all the shapes to paths to get rid of SVG shapes (like Rectangle and Text). Then in the Document Properties of Inkscape, set the dimensions as you wish. Save the document then export it in the format you like. Note, that from Inkscape you need export SVG in "Plain SVG" format since Inkscape's own project format (which is also an SVG file) contains Inkscape specific elements which may confuse the POD's application. Now you can upload the exported SVG file to the POD provider. Or exporting it in PNG format with at least in 300 DPI resolution then uploading the PNG instead. Again, this process may only work with line art or flat images. It would not work with photorealistic images. For them, you would be better off by tracing the original image and drawing paths manually. Hope, one day this will help someone.

[@777SEER]

do all stickers need to be vectorized, or can I use images right out of AI?

[@PODinsights]

For stickers, most AI generated images will be large enough to use as-is without converting to a vector. If you plan to use an AI generated image on a larger product like apparel, it most likely won't be large enough dimensions for good print quality, so converting to a vector would be necessary (assuming the AI generator that you use cannot create larger-dimension files).

[@suprem2002]

For the png design images, what colour profile should I prefer for mugs RGB or CMYK

[@PODinsights]

Hi! I use the RGB color profile when making designs, because both Printify and Printful indicate that they already have systems in place to convert RBG to CMYK and they recommend uploading files in RGB. Printify actually says that even if you upload your files in the CMYK color mode, their system converts it to RGB. I used to save everything in CMYK until I read about that. Here's the info that Printify provided about it in case you want to check it out: help.printify.com/hc/en-us/articles/4483625994513-Which-color-profile-should-I-use-for-my-files-