Fresh Prints · Greenwood SC

Gang Sheet Builder Guide

A complete walkthrough of every tool and setting in the DTF gang sheet builder — from uploading your first file to submitting a print-ready order.

Getting Started

Uploading Designs

The builder accepts PNG, JPG, and WEBP files. PNG with a transparent background is best for DTF — it gives you the cleanest results and skips the need for background removal.

Click the upload zone or drag and drop files anywhere onto it. The zone is labeled "Upload Artwork" in the left sidebar.

You can select multiple files at once. Each file becomes its own design on the canvas, stacked below the previous one.

Each design lands at up to 5" wide by default, scaled proportionally. You can resize it after it's placed.

Best Practice

Always upload at 300 DPI or higher. The builder previews at screen resolution, but the final exported file matches your original image quality.

Working with Designs

Selecting Designs

Click any design on the canvas to select it. A purple dashed border appears around it, and its controls show up in the left sidebar.

Single Select

Click a design on the canvas to select it
Click its name in the design list (below the upload zone) to select it from the list
Click any empty area of the canvas or press Esc to deselect everything

Multi-Select

Shift + click additional designs to add them to the selection
Click and drag on empty canvas to draw a rubber-band selection box — any design it overlaps gets selected
Ctrl+A selects every design on the sheet at once

When Multiple are Selected

The sidebar shows "X designs selected" with bulk Duplicate and Delete buttons. Individual resize controls are hidden while multiple designs are selected — deselect down to one design to access them.

Size & Orientation

Resizing & Rotating

Resizing with Corner Handles

Select a design — four white square handles appear at the corners. Drag any handle to resize the design.

Normal drag: resizes proportionally, maintaining the original aspect ratio
Hold Shift while dragging a corner: free-stretch mode — resizes independently in each direction, letting you squish or stretch the design

Resizing with Exact Dimensions

With a single design selected, the sidebar shows W (in) and H (in) fields. Type an exact number to set a precise size in inches. Changing one dimension scales the other proportionally.

Rotating

Click the ↻ 90° button in the sidebar to rotate 90 degrees clockwise
The free-rotate handle appears as a curved arc above the selected design — drag it to rotate to any angle

Quick Tip

Rotating designs 90° is one of the easiest ways to pack more onto a sheet — a tall vertical design might fit better on its side.

Placement

Positioning Designs

Drag any design to move it. The sheet is 16" wide and grows downward as you place designs lower.

Designs cannot overlap each other — if you drop one on top of another, it snaps back to where it was
Use arrow keys to nudge a selected design by 0.1" at a time
Hold Shift + arrow key to nudge by 1" at a time
When multiple designs are selected, dragging one moves the whole group together

Note

Nudging with arrow keys does not prevent overlap — it moves the design freely. Use Auto-Arrange (see below) to pack everything tightly without overlaps.

Image Processing

Background Removal (Chroma Key)

If your artwork has a solid-color background instead of a transparent one, the Chroma Key tool removes it — turning that color transparent so only your design prints.

Select a design and look for the Chroma Key panel in the sidebar below the resize fields.

Step 1 — Pick the Color to Remove

The color swatch shows the current target color (defaults to white). To change it:

Click the color swatch to open a color picker and choose manually
Or click the eyedropper icon, then click anywhere on the design to sample that exact color — this is usually the most accurate method

Step 2 — Set the Tolerance

Tolerance controls how closely pixels must match the target color to be removed. A higher tolerance catches more shades of that color.

Exact

Tolerance · 10

Only pixels very close to the target color. Use for simple, flat-color backgrounds with no compression.

Standard

Tolerance · 35

Default setting. Works well for most logos and designs with a reasonably clean background.

Noisy

Tolerance · 80

Aggressive removal. Use for JPGs or compressed images with a messy or uneven background.

Step 3 — Choose Edge Fill or Global Mode

This is the most important setting. It controls which matching pixels get removed.

Edge Fill (Default)

Removes outer background only

Starts from the outside edges of the image and removes only pixels connected to that border. Stops when it hits a different color. Use this for logos and designs where the background color does not appear anywhere inside the artwork.

Global

Removes everywhere it matches

Removes every pixel matching the color across the entire image — edges and interior. Use this when the background color also appears inside the design (for example, white lettering on a background where the background itself is also white).

Watch Out

Global mode can accidentally remove parts of your design if those areas happen to match the background color. Start with Edge Fill. Switch to Global only if Edge Fill leaves background areas untouched inside the design.

Step 4 — Apply & Review

Click 🪄 Remove Color. The canvas will briefly flash to show what changed — transparent areas appear as a gray checkerboard. If the result looks wrong, click ↩ Restore to go back to the original, then adjust the color or tolerance and try again.

Image Processing

Trim Transparent Edges

After removing a background, there's often a border of empty transparent space around the artwork — the original canvas area where the background used to be. ✂️ Trim Transparent Edges crops that away so the design element fits the artwork exactly.

This matters for two reasons:

The size fields (W/H) and the space designs take on the sheet are based on the image bounds, not the visible artwork inside them. A 5" design with a 1" transparent border is actually taking up 5" of sheet space.
After trimming, you can resize the design to the dimensions you actually want for the printed artwork.

When to Use

Run Trim Transparent Edges after every background removal. Then resize the trimmed design to your target print dimensions.

Image Processing

Clean Ghost Pixels

Some images contain pixels that look invisible on screen but aren't truly transparent — they have very low opacity (under ~10%). DTF RIP software often converts these semi-transparent pixels to solid black or white when generating the print file, creating dark or light halos around your designs.

These ghost pixels typically come from:

Anti-aliased edges (the browser smooths jagged edges by blending them with partial transparency)
Soft-masked or feathered selections in Photoshop
PNG files exported with partial transparency at the edges

Click 🧹 Clean Ghost Pixels to scan every pixel in the design. Any pixel with less than roughly 10% opacity is cleared to fully transparent. Pixels above about 94% opacity are snapped to fully opaque. This gives the RIP software clean, definitive edges with no ambiguous partial pixels.

Good Habit

Run Clean Ghost Pixels on any design that had anti-aliased edges or went through Photoshop masking — even if the image already has a transparent background. You can always hit ↩ Restore afterward if the result changes something you want to keep.

Bulk Actions

Multi-Select & Bulk Actions

When two or more designs are selected, the sidebar switches to a summary bar showing how many are selected, plus two bulk action buttons.

⧉ Dup All — duplicates every selected design at once, offset slightly so they land beside the originals
✕ Del All — removes all selected designs in one step
Drag any one design — moves the entire group together, maintaining their relative positions

Note

Individual controls (resize handles, W/H fields, rotate handle, Chroma Key) are disabled while multiple designs are selected. Click a single design by itself to access those tools.

Speed

Keyboard Shortcuts

All shortcuts are active while the canvas is in focus and you're not typing in an input field. On Mac, ⌘ works wherever Ctrl is listed.

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl`+`Z`	Undo
`Ctrl`+`Y`	Redo
`Ctrl`+`A`	Select all designs
`Ctrl`+`C`	Copy selected designs
`Ctrl`+`X`	Cut selected designs
`Ctrl`+`V`	Paste copied or cut designs
`Ctrl`+`D`	Duplicate selected designs
`Delete`	Remove selected designs
`Esc`	Deselect everything
`↑↓←→`	Nudge selected 0.1"
`Shift`+`Arrow`	Nudge selected 1"
`Shift`+Click	Add or remove from selection
`Ctrl`+`=`	Zoom in
`Ctrl`+`−`	Zoom out
`Ctrl`+`0`	Fit sheet to window

Layout

Auto-Arrange

The ⚡ Auto-Arrange button (in the top bar) automatically repositions all your designs to pack them as tightly as possible on the sheet. It runs a bin-packing algorithm that tries many rotations and placements to minimize wasted space and sheet length.

Any manual positioning you've done will be replaced — Auto-Arrange moves everything
The sheet length updates automatically to fit the arranged result
You can undo Auto-Arrange (Ctrl+Z) and then manually tweak placements

Best Results

Upload all your designs first, then hit Auto-Arrange once everything is on the canvas. It considers all designs together, so adding more later and re-running it may produce a more efficient layout.

Cost

Sheet Length & Pricing

The sheet is always 16" wide. The length adjusts automatically as you add and position designs — it grows to fit everything with a small buffer below the lowest design.

Minimum sheet length is 10 feet
Maximum is 100 feet
Pricing is volume-tiered — $37 for 10 ft ($3.70/ft), dropping to $3.00/ft at 100 ft ($300 total). A 20 ft sheet is $70, a 50 ft sheet is $160
The price shown in the sidebar updates in real time as you add designs and change the sheet length
You can manually set the sheet length using the dropdown in the sidebar if you need a specific length

Getting the Most Out of Your Sheet

Pack designs as close together as possible — every inch of empty vertical space adds to your sheet length and cost. Auto-Arrange is the fastest way to minimize gaps.

Final Step

Submitting Your Order

When your sheet is ready, click Continue to Checkout → in the top-right corner.

Review your order summary — sheet size, quantity, and price total.

Choose a quantity — order multiple copies of the same gang sheet if needed.

Add a rush option if you need it faster.

Leave any notes — special instructions, color callouts, or questions for us.

Submit — your gang sheet exports as a high-resolution PNG and your order comes through to us with all your details.

Before You Submit

Do a final check — zoom in on each design to make sure backgrounds are clean, no designs are overlapping, and everything is sized the way you want it to print.