Most customer artwork is not ready to print. It is too small, sits on a background, uses more colours than the technique allows, or is a raster logo that should be a vector. Someone has to fix it before it reaches the press, and in most shops that someone is an artist working file by file.
The chain, by hand
- Open the upload and check its size and DPI against the print area.
- Upscale it, or ask the customer for a better file and wait.
- Cut out the background.
- Reduce the colours to what the technique can print, and match them to Pantone.
- Redraw the logo as vectors where the technique needs paths.
- Build the separations, the white underbase or the masks.
- Export to the press’s format, and check it once more.
The same chain, as one call
DesignMint Prepress runs those steps as a pipeline for one decoration method — screen print, DTG, DTF, embroidery, sublimation, UV, HTV or laser. You send the upload and the print area; the job comes back with the press files and a report of what changed.
1curl -X POST https://api.designmint.intuio.io/v1/pipelines/screen \2 -H "Authorization: Bearer $DM_KEY" \3 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \4 -d '{5 "source_url": "https://cdn.yourshop.com/uploads/team-crest.jpg",6 "print_area": { "width_mm": 280, "height_mm": 350 },7 "on_fail": "best-effort"8 }'Jobs run asynchronously. Poll the job, or register a webhook and wait for job.completed. Failed jobs are not charged.
Side by side
| Prepress API | By hand | |
|---|---|---|
| Small uploads | Upscaled to 300 DPI at print size | Redrawn, or sent back to the customer |
| Backgrounds | Removed automatically | Cut out by hand |
| Colour | Quantized to the technique, Pantone-matched | Reduced and matched by eye |
| Separations | Separation PDFs, white underbase, foil and spot-UV masks | Built for each job |
| Output | PDF/X-4, ICC profiles, CMYK with ink limits, layered PSD | Whatever the artist exports |
| Checks | A validation report, with a fix for each failure | The artist’s eye |
| Cost | 25 credits ($0.01 each) per pipeline run | An artist’s time, per file |
Where the artist still matters
The API does the repetitive part. Artwork that needs judgement — a redraw, a creative call on colour, a conversation with the customer — still goes to a person. The validation report shows which jobs those are, so the artist spends their time on the files that need it.
Try it on your own files
The Starter block is $20 for 2,000 credits — enough for 80 full pipeline runs. The same services sit in the studio’s context menu, so customers can fix their own artwork mid-design.
