Process of getting a Daz image ready for print-on-demand

andrewburgon

What is your process of getting a Daz Studio render (dpi120) ready for print-on-demand sites? 

Thanks to those who recently answered by poster question. It sounds like I'm on the right track. I wish to expand on the question.

I'm still working all this out but I assume it goes something like this.

Do post editing to improve on the image if necessary.

Use the GIMP plug-in to give the image a CMYK color profile for those sites that ask for it.

Use GIMP's image scale to make the image 300ppi which for some reason changes the property of the file to 300dpi. No change to resolution. Then export it as a png file. On Cafepress they use inches. I read somewhere you simply times inches by 300 to come up with the necessary pixel resolution. So a 17oz latte mug that requires a 6.6 x 5.38 inch image will need a rendered image of 1980x1614 pixels. Then you change the low dpi to 300dpi. Redbubble's guidelines are all in pixels. For example, medium wall art at 3240×2160 pixels. I assume that is at 300dpi.       * Would I be correct in saying that I would need to render an image roughly three times that size? Why? Because depending on the software you use a rendered Daz Image's properties can show up between 92 and 120dpi. So I make the image three times bigger than they ask for and scale the image so that it shows up at 300dpi (no change to resolution.)

Any steps I missed?

Paintbox

You are making it unnecessary difficult. Just do this example. Say you got a picture 1600 x 900 pixels

Do 1600/300 and 900x300 , that is your dpi (or rather how large your image is printing with 300 dots per inch, or you could even say pixel per inch)
So in this about 5.3 inch wide and 3 inch long.

Your can aim for different dpi numbers :

75 : low res test prints

150 : adequate for huge posters / proof prints or just medium quality work

300 : art prints and high quality detail

So just make the pixel count big enough for the size you are shooting for and make sure it's the same as the printer expects and you are good!

I never convert to CMYK anymore myself, my printer does that for me since they have their machine specific conversion program.

Richard Haseltine

PPI is just a number at the fron of the file saying how big each pixel should be, it is a quality slider only when combined with a physical size. If you are given the size in pixels then that is all you need.