Illustrator pixel file resoultion problem

[yablin]

I have an Adobe Illustrator file of a drawing which is 3000 pixels wide. I want to load it to the

http://www.cafepress.com

site to have it made into a t-shirt. Cafepress will only accept jpg or png files with a maximum width of 1000 pixels.

The original drawing is line drawing 10 inches wide. It was scanned at 300 dpi and saved as a png file, imported into CorelTrace and converted to a vector graphic and saved as an ai file. In Illustrator it was modified and colored and had gradiants added.

When I convert it to a jpg file and reduce the file size to the 1000 pixel width required, it doesn't print as sharply and cleanly as it did before I resized it (from 3000 pixels wide down to 1000 pixels). I'm printing the drawing to come out to the 10 inch wide size of the original.

The original drawing is 10 inches wide. Cafepress will print it 10 inches wide. So there should be no loss of quality. Yet when I reduce the file to 1000 pixels wide I lose quality.

What's going on here? I've worked on this for days and can't find an answer. I'm about to go loonis bonkalis over this.

Help, please, and thank you.

Tom Lascsak

P.S. And I really would prefer to convert the ai file to a png, but some where in the process the png option disappears.

Rememeber, it has to be a jpg or png file that I wind up with, png being preferred.

 

[jimoblak]

While cafepress is a useful outfit for turnkey promo trinkets, the cafepress system lacks the highend quality you can get from the dirty little tshirt shop down the street.

Keep in mind that printing on fabric is a lot less detailed than printing on paper. Fabric weave diminishes resolution by about half. While your original paper image was 300 dpi, you are looking at 100 dpi, which is fairly decent for fabrics.

You might try contacting a local t-shirt printer to see what their requirements are for silkscreening. I doubt that they would require for a 300 dpi image.