How to Prepare Your Artwork File for Custom Silk Printing

Most artwork problems in custom silk printing are discovered at the worst possible moment — when the sample arrives and something is wrong. Resolution that looked fine on screen. Colours that drifted unexpectedly. A detail that disappeared at scale. Every one of these is preventable. Here is how.

Preparing artwork for silk is not the same as preparing it for paper. The substrate is different, the dye chemistry is different, the scale is usually larger, and the way colour behaves on natural fibre does not follow the same rules as ink on a coated surface. Understanding these differences before you submit a file is what separates a smooth production run from a frustrating one.

Why does silk require different file preparation?

Silk is printed using industrial inkjet technology with acid or reactive dyes — the professional standard for natural protein fibres. Unlike sublimation printing (which is used for polyester), acid and reactive dyes bond chemically into the silk fibre itself rather than sitting on the surface. The result is colour with exceptional depth and vibrancy that is genuinely part of the cloth. But this process is less forgiving of file errors than paper printing.

On paper, a slightly soft image can sometimes be rescued by the ink sitting on the coated surface. On silk, the dye penetrates the fibre. There is nothing to compensate for a low-resolution file or an incorrect colour mode. What goes in is what comes out, scaled across the full dimensions of the scarf.

What resolution does a silk scarf artwork file need?

The minimum requirement is 300 DPI at the actual print size of the scarf — not at a reduced scale, and not as a label in the file properties that does not reflect the true pixel count.

This is a distinction worth understanding clearly. DPI describes how many pixels are packed into each inch of printed output. A file that has been relabelled as 300 DPI without containing the actual pixel count to support it will print soft. The only way to know if a file genuinely meets the requirement is to check the pixel dimensions at the intended print size.

The maths is straightforward: multiply the scarf’s dimensions in centimetres by 118 (the number of pixels per centimetre at 300 DPI) to arrive at the pixel count needed.

For the most common scarf sizes, the requirements work out as follows. A 90 × 90cm scarf needs approximately 10,600 × 10,600 pixels. A 65 × 65cm scarf needs approximately 7,700 × 7,700 pixels. A 45 × 200cm long scarf needs approximately 5,300 × 23,600 pixels.

For artwork created at a smaller size — say, an A3 painting scanned for reference — the pixel count will not be sufficient to expand to scarf dimensions without visible softness. The source file, not a scaled version of it, is what matters.

What file formats are accepted for silk printing?

The right format depends on the nature of the artwork.

Vector files, specifically Adobe Illustrator AI and high-quality PDF, are the preferred format for designs with clean graphic elements — geometric patterns, flat illustrations, logos, text-based designs, or any artwork built from shapes rather than pixels. Vector files are resolution-independent: they can be scaled to any size without any loss of quality, which makes them ideal for silk production where the final dimensions are large and precision at the edges matters.

Raster files are the right choice for painterly, photographic, or mixed-media artwork — watercolours, gouache paintings, scanned originals, photographic composites. The accepted formats are PSD (Adobe Photoshop, with layers flattened before submission), TIFF (lossless, ideal for high-resolution raster artwork), and PNG (lossless, good for artwork with transparent backgrounds or fine edge detail).

JPEG files are acceptable but only at the maximum quality setting. JPEG uses lossy compression that discards image data to reduce file size. At small sizes this loss is usually invisible. At the scale of a silk scarf, compression artefacts have a way of appearing in areas of subtle colour transition, particularly in backgrounds and gradients, that are impossible to remove in production.

Should artwork be in RGB or CMYK for silk printing?

RGB is the correct colour mode for digital silk printing. This surprises many designers who are accustomed to switching to CMYK for any print production work — CMYK is the standard for paper printing, and it is a habit that is deeply embedded in professional design workflows.

Digital textile printing uses a different process. The industrial inkjet systems used for fabric printing use RIP (Raster Image Processor) software that is optimised to receive RGB files and translate them into the correct dye output for the specific fabric and ink combination being used. Sending a CMYK file to this process introduces an unnecessary conversion step that can introduce colour shift and reduce the accuracy of the output.

The recommended colour profile for digital textile printing is sRGB IEC61966-2.1, which is the standard sRGB profile. Adobe RGB 1998 is also acceptable and gives a slightly wider colour gamut. Embed the profile in the file before submission so the production team can manage the colour correctly at the RIP stage.

How should colour references be provided?

If specific colours are critical to the project — brand colours, colours that need to match other printed materials, or precise skin tones — colour references should be provided in Pantone TCX, the Textile Cotton eXtended system. This is the Pantone range calibrated for fabric rather than paper.

Pantone C (coated) is calibrated for coated paper and uses a different dye system. The same Pantone C number and the corresponding TCX number produce visually similar but not identical colours, and the difference becomes apparent on fabric where light interacts with the surface in a fundamentally different way from coated paper.

Even with correct TCX references, some variation between the swatch and the finished silk is inherent to the process. Silk reflects light more than cotton, which means colours printed on silk often appear richer and more saturated than the same TCX reference on a cotton swatch. This is a property of silk, not an error in the colour matching. Understanding it in advance, rather than discovering it when the sample arrives, saves a great deal of back-and-forth.

What about bleed and safe zone?

Unlike paper printing, where a 3mm bleed is standard, fabric cutting operates with a larger tolerance. For silk scarves, allow a bleed of 1 to 1.5cm on each edge — meaning the artwork should extend 1 to 1.5cm beyond the intended finished size of the scarf on all sides.

This bleed ensures that when the fabric is cut, any minor variation in the cutting line does not result in a white or unprinted edge appearing on the finished piece. For designs with a solid background colour that extends to the edge, this is particularly important. For designs that have a natural white or fabric-coloured border built into the design, the bleed is less critical but still good practice.

The safe zone for important design elements — a central motif, a border pattern, a logo — is the inverse consideration. Keep any elements you do not want to risk being cut away at least 1cm inside the intended finished edge of the scarf.

What about text in the design?

If the artwork contains text, convert all text to outlines before submitting the file. Outlined text is converted from a live font into vector shapes, which means the file is no longer dependent on the production team having the same typeface installed. Text that has not been outlined may be substituted with a different font if the original is not present in the production environment, which changes the appearance of the design in ways that cannot always be predicted.

In Adobe Illustrator: select all text, then go to Type → Create Outlines. Keep a separate version of the file with live text for future editing. In Photoshop, rasterising the text layer achieves the same result.

The most common mistake in artwork submission

The most common error we see is a file that has been correctly labelled at 300 DPI but does not contain the pixel count to support that label at the actual scarf size. The designer has created the artwork at A4 or A3 at 300 DPI, which is correct for that document size — but when that file is placed at 90 × 90cm, the effective resolution drops to something closer to 72 DPI, and the print will show it.

The reliable check: open the file in image editing software, set the canvas to the actual scarf dimensions with no resampling, and read the DPI value. If it falls below 200 DPI at the scarf size, the file will need to be rebuilt from a higher-resolution source. Upscaling a low-resolution file does not recover the lost detail — it only increases the pixel count by interpolation, which produces a result that still prints soft.

We check every artwork file we receive before it goes to print. If we find a resolution issue, we will flag it and discuss options before anything moves forward. But the earlier in the process these things are identified, the fewer delays they cause.

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If you are unsure whether your artwork is ready for silk production, the simplest thing is to send it through and ask. We would rather spend five minutes reviewing a file before the project starts than discover an issue at the sampling stage.

Send us your artwork for a review →

Related reading: The complete guide to ordering custom silk scarves in Australia · Colour accuracy in custom silk printing

Frequently asked questions

What resolution does artwork need to be for silk scarf printing?
Artwork should be a minimum of 300 DPI at the actual finished size of the scarf. For a 90 × 90cm scarf, this means approximately 10,600 × 10,600 pixels. Simply relabelling a file as 300 DPI without the underlying pixel count will not produce a sharp result. Always check the pixel dimensions at the actual print size, not at a smaller working size.

Should artwork be in RGB or CMYK for silk printing?
RGB is correct for digital silk printing. Unlike paper printing, digital textile inkjet systems are optimised to receive RGB files. The RIP software used in fabric printing translates RGB data into the correct dye output for the specific fabric. Submitting a CMYK file introduces an unnecessary conversion that can cause colour shift. The recommended profile is sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

What file format should I use for custom silk scarf artwork?
For graphic or vector-based designs: Adobe Illustrator AI or PDF. For painterly, photographic, or mixed-media artwork: PSD (flattened), TIFF, or PNG. JPEG is acceptable at maximum quality only. Convert all text to outlines before submitting any file type.

What Pantone colour system should I use for silk printing?
Pantone TCX (Textile Cotton eXtended) is the correct reference for fabric printing. Pantone C (coated) is calibrated for paper and will not accurately predict how a colour behaves on silk. Note that even with TCX references, silk often appears richer and more saturated than the swatch because silk reflects more light than cotton — this is a property of the fabric, not a production error.

How much bleed does a silk scarf design need?
Allow 1 to 1.5cm of bleed on each edge — larger than the standard 3mm used for paper printing, because fabric cutting has a wider tolerance. Extend any background colours or edge elements to the full bleed area. Keep important design elements at least 1cm inside the intended finished edge of the scarf.