To determine whether there is an actual visible difference between 150 and 300 DPI, it’s important to keep in mind the printing method and the size your final work will be displayed at.
All-over printing (sublimation)
The printing method is called dye sublimation. In this process, the inks are gassed onto the garment using heat presses, so when the ink is gassed, it covers the entire surface of the garment. Even low-resolution files or files that were resampled and thrown into a 150 DPI template, don’t seem nearly as low quality in this print as they do on the screen.
This is why having a 300 DPI file won't have a big impact on the quality of sublimation products.
Where does resolution make a difference?
Mugs: Our templates can have a DPI of up to 300. Although 150 DPI is okay, the smaller details there are, the higher the resolution should be. Mugs are being looked at up close, which is why you want to ensure that your files are high quality.
Shirts: Similarly to the mugs, you may want to create these files at 300 DPI to ensure it prints nice and crisp.
Paper products: Although the minimum accepted DPI for paper products is 75, we strongly recommend the files to be 300 DPI to ensure your products are of the highest quality.
Please note that our Design Maker is set to 150 DPI. We keep it this way because not everyone is an expert and may just want to print an image that they can’t change the resolution on.