Free DTF and DTG halftone generator

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   Add your image. Drop a PNG, JPG or WEBP, choose a file, or paste with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on a Mac). Images copied from Pinterest, ChatGPT or Photoshop paste straight in.

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   Set the print size first. Type the width you will print in inches. The dots are measured in lines per inch at that size, and the download is 300 DPI at that size.

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   Pick the garment. Choose the shirt color under the preview. In DTF / DTG mode that color is knocked out. If the art sits on a solid background of another color, the tool knocks that out instead, and the eyedropper picks any other one.

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   Tune the dots. Set the LPI, the shape and the angle. Solid from decides where the art stops turning into dots, Min dot keeps every dot printable and Clean up haze removes faint mist.

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   Check and download. Look at Mask to see what gets ink, use 100% for the real pixels, then download the transparent PNG and, for dark shirts, the white underbase.

Art made on a black background prints as a black rectangle on a dark tee, and soft glows print as a flat, semi-transparent mist. The usual fix is hours of channel work in a photo editor. This generator does it in one step: it takes the garment color out of every pixel, the way you would take a color out of a photo. What was pure shirt color disappears. A glow that faded into the black becomes partly transparent with its full color, and that transparency turns into dots of that color. Areas that are already solid stay solid, with their original edges.

On a black shirt the dots and the shirt mix in the eye, so the print looks like the original art without the box and with less ink. The same works on white and on colored garments: pick the garment, or pick the background color of the art if it is not the shirt color.

DTF / DTG is the default for full color prints. One ink turns the image into dots of a single ink, the classic screen print look. Color keeps the color of the image in every dot and sizes the dots by tone. CMYK splits the image into cyan, magenta, yellow and black screens at four different angles, like offset printing. Duotone uses one ink for the shadows and another for the highlights.

DTF and DTG printers put white ink under the colors on dark shirts, and screen printers burn a separate underbase screen. The underbase download is a second PNG at the same size as the print with solid white under every pixel that has ink. A choke of 0 to 2 pixels at 300 DPI pulls the white in from the edges so it never shows as a light outline, and halftone dots and thin lines keep their center, so every dot still has white under it.

Every printer, film and powder holds a different minimum dot. The test sheet has a row for each LPI from 15 to 55 and patches from 3 to 80 percent, drawn with your shape, angle and minimum dot. Print it once, peel or wash it, and use the finest LPI where the smallest dots survive.

LPI (lines per inch) is how many rows of dots fit in one inch of the print. Fewer lines mean bigger dots that are easier to print. More lines mean finer detail that needs a better process. The right number depends on how the ink reaches the shirt.

The presets follow this: Bold is 20 LPI, Grid 25, Lines 30, Classic 35 and Fine 55. Because the LPI is set at the print size, an 11 inch print and a 4 inch pocket print get dots of the same physical size.

A DTF transfer is ink printed on film and covered with a hot melt adhesive powder that only sticks where the ink is wet. A very small dot carries very little ink, so it grabs very little adhesive. It can stay on the film when you peel, or lift off after a few washes.

That is what Min dot is for: no dot in the file is smaller than the percentage you set. In One ink mode the same job is done by Clean up, which removes every dot smaller than the percentage you set. Raise it a little when you print fine dots, and lower it when your printer holds detail well and you want more shadow. A safe habit is to keep isolated dots and thin lines above roughly half a millimeter, which is about 6 pixels at 300 DPI, and to ask your printer what their film and powder hold.

On a dark shirt, a DTF printer lays a white underbase under every pixel that has any ink in it. A soft, semi-transparent edge pixel gets white underneath but only a little color on top, so a thin light ring shows around every dot.

This generator keeps every pixel either full ink or fully transparent, so the edges print clean. Turn Smooth edges on only for screens and mockups, or when your printer asks for anti-aliased art.

The garment is part of the print. With white ink on a black tee, the dots grow in the light parts of the image and the shirt itself becomes the shadows, so one ink still gives you a full range of tones. On a white tee it is the opposite: black ink grows in the dark parts.

Choose the garment under the preview and the tool sets the ink and where it goes. You can still pick any ink color, switch Ink goes on yourself, or keep the colors of the image.

Printers read resolution at the size you print. An 11 inch wide design at 300 DPI is 3300 pixels wide, and a 14 inch one is 4200. Set the width before you download: the generator draws the dots fresh at that size instead of stretching a small file, so you do not need to upscale the image first.

Resizing a halftone afterwards blurs the edges and can cause moiré patterns, so if the print size changes, export again. The PNG carries 300 DPI in its metadata, so Photoshop, Canva and print shop uploaders read the right size. Not sure how big to print? The print size calculator has the usual widths for every placement.

• Threshold image converterClean one color lettering, logos and stencils with no background.
• DTF gang sheet builderPack all your designs on one sheet and export it at 300 DPI.
• Print size calculatorFind the right width for chest, back and sleeve prints.
• Oversized tee mockup generatorSee your design on a 3D oversized t-shirt before you print.