Photographing t-shirts for a product designer

Photograph a white or light grey blank on a hanger against a plain wall, in soft, even light, front and back from the same tripod position; then cut each photo out onto a transparent background and save it as a PNG or WebP about 1600 pixels tall.

In a product designer, the photo is the product. Customers judge the shirt, the fit of their print and the colour from it, so a clean photo of your actual blank sells better than a generic mockup. You need one photo per printable side, and a little care makes those photos work for every colour you sell.

Hanger, flat lay or model

• On a hanger against a plain wall: the shirt keeps its shape and natural folds, the neck and sleeves read clearly, and the photo is easy to repeat for the back. This is what PrintBlob’s bundled t-shirt uses.
• Flat lay on a table, photographed from straight above: simple and even, but flatter-looking; smooth the shirt carefully, since every crease shows under a print.
• On a model: the most appealing, but the print area moves with the pose and the back photo never quite matches the front. Better for gallery photos than for the designer.

One white shirt for every colour

Photograph a white or light grey shirt. A designer that recolours photos can then show every colour you sell from that one photo, keeping the folds and shading: PrintBlob does this with each colour’s value (see Colours and recolouring). Coloured details stay as they are, so a wooden hanger or a printed label keeps its colour.

If you sell a colour that recolouring can’t match well, such as a heather, a tie-dye or a garment with contrast trim, photograph that one separately and give it its own mockup.

Light

Soft, even light shows folds without hard shadows: a large window on an overcast day, or two lights bounced off white boards on either side. Avoid direct sun and on-camera flash. Keep the shirt evenly lit from collar to hem; a dark lower half will look like a darker fabric once the photo is recoloured.

Front and back that match

Shoot the front, then turn the shirt on its hanger and shoot the back without moving the camera: same distance, same height, same zoom, same light. Use a tripod and mark where the hanger hangs.

Matching photos matter for two reasons. The customer switches between front and back and expects the same shirt (in PrintBlob, printing the back is PrintBlob Pro); and a 3D preview built from the two photos, such as PrintBlob Pro’s, lines the back up as the front’s mirror image, so a back photo taken from further away won’t meet the front at the edges. How PrintBlob Pro makes a 3D product from your photos shows what goes wrong when they don’t match.

Background

Cut the shirt out onto a transparent background and save it as PNG or WebP. A designer can then show it on any page colour, and recolouring touches only the shirt. Free editors such as GIMP can do the cut-out (its Foreground Select tool, then a layer mask to tidy the edges). Keep the hanger if it’s in the photo: it helps the 3D view and makes the shirt read as hanging.

A plain white background also works, but the edges of a white shirt tend to disappear into it.

Size and framing

• Frame the whole shirt with a small margin, the same way for every side.
• Around 1600 pixels tall is plenty for the designer; PrintBlob’s bundled photo is 1334 × 1600. The print file’s quality comes from the customer’s image, not from your photo.
• Export WebP for a small file size, or PNG.

Measure the print area

The print area you draw on the photo stands for a real size on the shirt. Measure it on a real shirt in the size customers order most, within your printer’s or press’s largest print size: for example 28 × 36 cm on the front of an adult tee. Draw the area where you actually print: usually starting a few centimetres below the collar.

Enter the size in centimetres when you set up the mockup in PrintBlob Pro’s mockup editor (see Mockups). The print files come out at that size at 300 DPI, so a correct measurement is what makes the print on the shirt match the preview. How to measure, product by product, is in print areas and print sizes.

Check the result

Open the designer, place a square logo exactly in the print area’s corners, add it to the cart, print it, and lay the print on the shirt. If it lands where the designer showed it, the photo and the print area are right.

Questions shop owners ask

See the bundled t-shirt in the designer, or read how the print files are made. For a brand selling merch on its own product photos, see a merch shop for a brand or a creator.