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41.) I printed my image on my printer but your mug decorations are not the same

We use uniquely-formulated, special pigment-based inks to decorate our white coffee mugs, while you're most likely using the standard ink jet or laser printer inks that came with your printer which where developed for printing on paper only, the printed results will be very different.

Even if you'd use the same pigment inks we use but printed with a different resolution from ours, the print-outs would be different as different amounts of ink would be printed at different resolutions and, hence, the color saturation will be rather different.

Also, the same ink used on different printers will produce different print-outs even if the same resolution is used...not to mention the medium on which we print our mug decorations which will greatly influence the final appearance of the printed image as the chemical make-up alone of each will produce different results.

Another important point to remember is the particular software used to create, display and then print your digital images. Software - graphics applications specifically - are responsible for bringing all your image components together. And we all know that they are not created equal and hence each will produce a different out-put. (To further complicate this, you might want to read here and here.)

And as if this would be not be all, we still have to fire the print-outs onto the mugs - which is another chemical reaction.

It might become apparent that there is a very, very slim chance that your print-outs will equal the decorations on the finished photo coffee mugs.

Based on this as well as the many other points made elsewhere in this FAQ section, if color fidelity is of concern, sample mugs will have to be created so as to be able to adjust your digital image to arrive at more-or-less the mug decoration you require.

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42.) The virtual mug you e-mailed is rather fuzzy is this how the printed mug will be? 

 The virtual mug layout/decoration we many times send to our customers along with our order confirmation is not representative of the printed mug decoration. This virtual mug decoration is only so that you can see what your mug might look like overall and might or might not be like the finished coffee mug decoration.
Our virtual mug decorations always have a resolution of only 72 dpi's as otherwise many e-mail programs and Internet Access Providers (AOL, for example) will not receive it and, if they do, the file would be so large that it might virtually take hours to download over a slow phone connection. Furthermore, we compress all our virtual mug layouts with the lossy compression format of .jpg which further decreases the image quality forever.
If the digital file you sent us has a resolution of only 72 dpi's and/or is in the .jpg (or in even the unsuitable gif) format - just as our virtual mug decorations - then, of course, the printed mug will look very similar to the virtual mug decoration. 
We suggest that any digital art work files submitted to us for the decoration of coffee mugs have a resolution of at least 300 dpi's as this is the resolution we'll use to decorate your mug order with notwithstanding the resolution of the art work you submitted. Hence, we'll print, for example, your low-resolution digital file with our printing resolution of 300 dpi's;  yet this will not result in a high resolution mug decoration, but in a  rather pixellated low-resolution mug decoration based on your digital image resolution.
Furthermore your digital file should be in the .tif format AND in the dimensions, or larger, that have to appear on the finished mug decoration. 
We offer detailed suggestions on this elsewhere in our web site.

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43.) The virtual mug decoration you e-mailed with your order confirmation does not cover the mug completely 

We always use the digital art work submitted by our customers AS IS.  If its dimensions are such that they do not cover the maximum space we can decorate on our various coffee mug sizes, then the decoration will have much more "white" space around it than normally, as we cannot decorate the entire exterior surface of our coffee mugs under any conditions. (By the way, we cannot decorate the mug handle, the mug bottom, nor the inside of our coffee mugs.)
You can easily determine the maximum areas that we can decorate from the information readily available in this web site.

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44.) Can I have my favorite poem printed on a single coffee mug for a gift?

We accept orders for only ONE coffee mug and we can print any text, including poems and sayings, on our white coffee mugs.
The best way to send us the text of your poem would be with an e-mail where you can write it with the corresponding line breaks. You can also select the letter font you'd like us to use as well as indicate the text color to be used - unless you have a very special font in mind which you'd have to send us separately as an attachment to an e-mail.
Please note that we're PC-based and hence all digital material submitted  to us has to be for this platform.
You can also estimate the cost of your single-mug order here if you supply camera ready digital art files, and you can order any of our four mug sizes. Your poem can be single-sided, on both mug sides, wrap-around, or handle-to-handle.
We normally can ship our custom-mug orders within 2-3 business days after receipt of our secure on-line order/payment form and your acceptance of our order confirmation.

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45.) How can I compute the size of a digital image

To compute the Image Size in MB (megabytes):   
 multiply  Width (in inches)  x  Height (in inches)  x  the Resolution Squared.  Then divide the total by 344,000. 

For example: a 3 x 3 inch image with a resolution of 300 dpi's  would have a 2.35MB Image/File Size 
(3 x 3 x 300 x 300 / 344000).

For example:  a 3.5 x 8.33 inch image a resolution of 300 dpi's  would have a 7.63MB Image/File Size 
(3.5 x 8.33 x 300 x 300 / 344000).

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You can also uses the above formula to determine the resolution of a given digital art work file by simply working backwards. First determine the file size by looking at your file in Windows Explorer and then work backwards.

For example:
Windows Explorer tells you that your 3" x 3" image has a file size of 1.22MB. Now, do the following:
Multiply 1.22MB x 344000 = 419680
Divide by 3 = 139893
Divide again by 3 = 46631
Now hit the Square-Root () or SQRT button on your calculator = 215.94 dpi's = approximate resolution of your 3 inch by 3 inch digital image.

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46.) Black, Dark-Blue and Cobalt colored coffee mugs - Why don't you offer them?

As already outlined in our FAQ question #14, we can, at this point of time, only decorate white coffee mugs.
It has always been very difficult to print light colors on dark backgrounds, even when using the screen-printing process where thick layers of paint can be printed readily.
If you look at a black mug with, for example, white printing on it, you'll notice that the white color is printed very thick and that only basic lettering and shapes are printed. - no fancy details at all.
 This is to make sure that the black background color does not "show through" the white paint. (That the white is really opaque.)  If it would, the white paint would not look white but gray. 
This kind of decoration would not be acceptable for more sophisticated mug decorations, such as, for example, fine details, shadows, gradient fills, continuous tone images, photographs and so forth - the hallmarks of modern sublimation mug decorations.

There is, however, a solution to this "apparent problem". 
By printing a black (or any other dark color like dark blue, cobalt, etc.) background band on most of the coffee mug - except mug rim, bottom and mug handle - where the white of the mug itself will be the "color white to be printed" the fine details of modern mug decorations can be obtained. 
Now, fine details, gradients, shadows, continues tones, photos as well as almost any design in brilliant, shiny colors can be reproduced with acceptable fidelity.

This, it seems, is a small price to pay for not having an "all-in-and-out black" coffee mug. We had always assumed that the quality of the mug decoration would be more important than the basic color of the coffee mug - your coffee will not mind.
For those who need dark colors on their coffee mugs, we now also offer a few "inside-colored" coffee mugs that come very close to the all-around black coffee mug. Why not  take a look at them  while you're here?

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47.) What is Pixelation - or Pixellation?

The easiest way to describe what pixelation, or pixellation is, is to show you what we mean:

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48.) Why do my drop shadows have a "pinkish" hue to them on your coffee mug decorations.  In my digital file they show as real gray?

It is very likely that your drop shadows (or any grey for this matter) have a pinkish hue to them as it is rather complicated for our pigment-based inks to reproduce a  CMYK gray color - as for example a 35% or 45% pure CMYK black. 
By the same token, any color density of about 15% or less might not be printable at all in any color.
The sublimation pigment inks we have to use to decorate our full-color mugs or tiles with are very complicated, and on some occasions they might not reproduce colors faithfully-  and grey is one of them - even in the space age.

In color-critical designs it is hence strongly recommended to have a sample mug decoration made to determine the degree of color shifts - if any - so that remedial actions can be taken, such as, for example, NOT using any CMYK mode colors at all, especially for grays and use instead these RGB mode colors for:
- light grey:     R154-G155-B159;  or C33-M27-Y27-K0;
- darker grey:  R111-G117-B121;  or C55-M44-Y44-K3.

which will produce much "better-looking" grays.

In general we recommend that RGB mode color be used for the creation of any digital files destined for mug decorations and not any CMYK mode colors at all.

 

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49.) Can you put my digital image on the inside of your coffee mugs, too?

We can only decorate the white outside of all of our coffee mugs. That includes our all-white coffee mugs and our inside-colored and our rim-and-handle colored coffee mugs. Nor can we decorate the bottom of our mugs - either inside or outside - nor the mug handle itself. The outside bottom of our mugs carries only our own back stamp . 
In general terms, it is not recommended to have any food or liquid come in permanent contact with any decoration of any kind on any kind of ceramic or other materials - and might even be illegal in some states/countries.

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