The best file format for printing digital art is surely something you’ve wondered about if you’re a digital artist. When having your digital artwork printed, you want the art print to be the best quality possible. In this blog post, I share with you the best file type for printing art and what image file formats to use when sending artwork files for printing to a print shop or your own digital printer.
Many digital artists wish to provide high-quality fine art prints of your artworks. After all, offering prints is a great way to get your art noticed and drive sales.
So more often than not, you might have wondered about the best file format for printing digital art.
There are lots of file formats on the market and if you’re new to the printing game it’s hard to figure out the best file type for printing images.
In this post, I talk about all the common image file types and explain which of them are best for printing art – and why!
Btw, if you’re wondering how to save your artworks, check out my post about the → Best File Type To Save Digital Art.
OK… So before delving into the best file type for printing art, we need to take a look at the different image file formats. That is to say raster and vector images.
image file formats
Picture file formats can generally be put into two categories: raster files and vector files. This distinction is not always 100% clear, though. Because there are image formats that can contain elements of both types.
Raster file formats include:
JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, RAW, and PSD.
Vector file formats include:
PDF, EPS, SVG, and AI.
The most common file types are actually raster images. Each raster image consists of a grid of dots. Each of these dots or pixels contains a color. All raster images are resolution-dependent. They get more pixelated as you zoom in.
When you scale up a raster image, you basically stretch the pixels. Your editing software is essentially guessing the dots information based on the surrounding pixels. This can result in a pixelated or blurry image.
Unlike raster images, vector images are not resolution-dependent. Vector images rely on geometric shapes. That means you can enlarge them to virtually any size without compromising quality and detail.
Lossy vs. Lossless Image Formats
Each raster image is either lossless or lossy. This depends on the file type you choose to save it in.
A common lossy image format is JPEG. Lossy means that JPEG uses a compression format that reduces the file size of the image but also takes away some of its quality. When saving a digital artwork as JPEG in an image editing application (e.g. Photoshop), you can choose the compression level (Low to Very High and Maximum).
Depending on the compression rate selected, the algorithm then reduces the data of the image. For example, it might reduce the amount of colors by blocking nearby pixels of the same color together into larger tiles. This creates a smaller file format but also decreases photo quality. Therefore, a JPEG file with a high compression is definitely not the best file format for printing digital art.
Lossless images, on the other hand, don’t sacrifice any quality when they are being saved. The images may be compressed but a lossless format captures the data of the original file resulting in an exact pixel-by-pixel representation.
No matter how often you open and resave a lossless image file, you will always be able to reconstruct your image to its original state!
A JPEG picture, on the other hand, can never be restored to its original quality. Once you’ve saved your artwork files with a certain compression, some of the data and quality is lost forever.
Best file format for printing digital art in terms of color
CMYK vs. RGB
RGB stands for red, green and blue. These are the three primary colors of light that combine to produce other colors.
Files saved in RGB mode are optimal to use on screen. This includes websites, mobile phones, videos, etc.
Best color format for printing
CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). These colors represent the four inks that will combine during the printing process.
That being said, it’s obvious that images saved in CMYK mode are the best file type for printing.
is PNG or JPEG better for print?
JPEG / JPG
JPEG was developed by Joint Photographics Export Group, thus its name. You will also see the file extension written as .jpg. That’s because file types used to have a limit of three characters in the early days of computer technology.
Most of the photos you find online are JPEGs. In fact, lossy files such as JPEG are much smaller than lossless files. That makes them ideal to share online and upload to websites.
→ Best Sites to Upload Art – Artist Guide To Posting Art Online
Having small-size JPEG images of your digital art on your website allows the website to load faster and ensure a better user experience. If you want to make your artwork available to download on the web, JPEG guarantees that the download is quick.
JPEG images are also great for emailing. If you want to send one of your pictures for preview to a client, JPEG is the format you want to go for.
However, as I mentioned above, JPEG is a lossy format. So when converting your artwork files for printing, you want to keep the compression level to a minimum.
High-resolution files with low compression (ideally 300 dpi and Maximum quality) are the best file format for printing digital art from JPEG files!
PNG
PNG stands for Portable Network Graphics. PNGs are usually raster images, but they can also be in vector format, for example when saving them as Adobe Fireworks PNG Vectors.
Unlike JPG, PNG is a lossless bitmap image format. Its LZW compression algorithm doesn’t entail any loss in quality. That means you can open, edit and resave the image again and again without the image degrading over time.
Due to their low compression, PNGs are often higher quality than JPEGs. They retain much more detail and image data. PNG features a high color depth (up to 16.7 million colors in PNG-24) and easily supports high-resolution photos.
However, the low PNG compression results in larger file sizes and thus longer loading times on the web. If you’re working with photos online, go with JPEG.
Is PNG the best file type for printing digital art?
With all their lossless compression and preservation of quality, PNGs seem to be the best file format for printing photos.
Fact is, PNGs are high-quality but they are not ideal to print files. Why?
Because PNGs are in RGB color mode. They can work well on some digital printers that handle RGB color profiles. Yet, if you want to print on offset or anything that requires CMYK color mode, PNG is everything but optimal.
Either the printer will reject your files and ask you to convert them to CMYK color mode, or the printer itself will convert them for you. In this case you have no control on the final outcome and oftentimes the colors might just look awful.
is JPEG or PDF better for printing?
We’ve already looked at JPEG for printing digital art. Now let’s have a look at PDF and find out how JPEG vs. PDF compare in terms of printing quality.
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It’s an image format used to display documents and images correctly, regardless of the application, web browser, operating system or other device.
When we speak about PDF in terms of digital artwork, we mean Photoshop PDF. If you don’t have Photoshop, there are a couple of similar free editing applications that also allow you to save files as PDF.
PDF is a vector image format. Actually, most vectors start out as an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). Although EPS files are primarily vector formats, an EPS file can include both vector and raster image data. This file format is supported by several different image editing applications and drawing programs.
Typically, an EPS file includes a single graphic element in a high quality that can be used to create larger designs. While you can surely send your artwork files for printing as EPS, it’s no big deal to convert them to a PDF.
With applications like Photoshop, Illustrator and the like, you can easily export any image as PDF.
Like all vector images, PDFs are resolution-independent. When you scale a vector image up or down, the shapes get bigger or smaller, but you don’t lose quality and detail.
The PDF file format is universally accepted for printing. Because PDF files always look identical to the original artwork or photo, they ensure that the image will display correctly across all devices and applications.
This makes PDF one of the best file formats for printing digital art!
Apart form PDF, there’s another excellent file format for printing:
TIFF / TIF
TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format and is a lossless raster format.
Because of its extremely high quality, it’s commonly considered the best file type for printing in the professional photography and desktop publishing industry.
Just like PNG, TIFF may use LZW compression. TIFF files are among the highest quality image formats available. Because they use no compression, TIFF files are extremely large.
However, if you want to print high-quality digital artwork or photos – especially at large sizes – this is the format to go for!
TIFF is the most universal and most widely supported format across all platforms. Along with PDF, one can safely say that TIFF the best file format for printing digital art!
In conclusion, what is the best file type for printing digital art?
In this post, we’ve dug into the most common file types for printing, what distinguishes raster and vector images, and RGB vs. CMYK color profiles.
You’ve learned about the differences between PNG vs. JPEG, EPS, and TIFF, and whether JPEG or PDF is better for printing digital artwork files.
Let’s sum up the best file format for printing digital art:
- High-resolution JPEG (raster) images with low compression are absolutely fine for printing artworks and photos. Make sure the color profile is set to CMYK and the resolution is 300 dpi.
- TIFFs and Photoshop PDFs are particularly adequate for printing and the preferred print format in the professional photo industry.
- Your PDFs should be CMYK vector source files and your TIFFs 300 dpi raster.
- PDF is ideal to supply your artwork to a digital printer.
- Both TIFF and PDF are perfect for printing large posters and fine art prints.
- TIFF offers high-standard image output by using no compression and preserving high detail and quality. TIFFs are compatible with almost any software that can open images.
- PDF is a resolution-independent vector image format that saves files identical to the original artwork and displays them correctly across all devices and applications.
I hope this post was able to help you find the best file format for printing digital art works of yours! If so, feel free to share the post with other artists! Thanks for reading and see you soon, Angie 💞
