Changing Logo from Black to White causing Pixelation

[lomazacreations]

Good afternoon. I've attached a copy of my company's logo and for some reason, every time I change the logo from black to white, it becomes pixelated.

I've used Gaussian Blue and Curves to try an eliminate the pixels, but I wasn't sure if there was another way to do this to make it "cleaner?"

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[IamSam]

Your sample image seems to be pixelated as black, so naturally it would also be pixelated as white. Do you have the original vector based document that it should have been created in? Do you have the original PSD that this seems to have been made with? Do you know what font this is?

 

[lomazacreations]

Yes, it is definitely pixelated in black but when I print it on a shirt, the pixels do not show at all. It’s only when I change the color to white. It's so odd. I've attached the original PSD file, and the font name is called Mollen Fancyla. I'm open to any recommendations you might have. Thanks again

 

[IamSam]

Thanks for the reply. The PSD file you provided is not layered. Do you have the original that has a circle layer and a separate font layer?

If not, that's fine! The quickest and easiest way would be to recreate the logo using vector shapes and font.

 

[lomazacreations]

Argh. Unfortunately I do not. I developed the logo with Kittl and opened up the file on photoshop to work on it. Rookie mistake.

 

[IamSam]

No problem.

For starters, just align the old logo, set guides, then use the Ellipse Tool (vector based) to create the outside of the circle. Then, on the same shape layer, use the Ellipse Tool again set to "Exclude overlapping Shapes" to remove the center.

Like this...

 

[IamSam]

Next, add your circular font to the inner circle. If your not sure how to do this, look here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Phtoshop+font+in+a+circle


I added a darker BG so you can see it better.

 

[IamSam]

Next, on a new layer I created a white rectangle using the "Rectangle Tool". I then lowered it's opacity. Then I added two font layers (matching the original sample) sized, spaced, and positioned. I then grouped these layers, rotated the group, turned off the rectangle layer, selected the circle layer, added a layer mask, used the rectangle layer to create a selection, then filled the layer mask with black to mask out the circle.

 

[IamSam]

White without pixelation or alias.

 

[IamSam]

By adding a clipped solid color fill layer to the group, you can make the font and circle any color you like.......

 

[lomazacreations]

Thank you so very much! I’m so thankful for this community. I’ve come a long way since last year and that’s because of the detailed content throughout this forum. Iamsam, you’re the best.

 

[IamSam]

You're very welcome!

There could be a way of salvaging your original sample image, say with trace in Illustrator, or converting it to a path in Ps and adjusting, but re-creating the logo would still probably be the easiest way to work out this issue.

 

[thebestcpu]

There is a way to salvage the image yet the cleanest result is starting from a vector image. I will post later on how to recover this image (not too hard) yet I think you issue may not be in inverting the image, yet rather in the absorption of alot of ink on the T shirt rather than a much smaller amount of ink when using your original image. Here is something I found online. Not having printed shirts myself, I cannot attest to the information yet it seems to make sense:

Printing Black vs. Inverted Image on T-Shirts

1. Ink Type and White Underbase When printing black on a light shirt,
the ink sits directly on the fabric and absorbs evenly, resulting in
crisp edges. When printing white or light ink on a dark shirt, a
white underbase is usually laid down first so colors appear opaque.
This extra layer can slightly bleed or spread, especially at edges,
creating roughness.

2. Fabric Absorption Differences Light shirts absorb dark ink better
than dark shirts handle white ink. Dark fabrics are often pretreated
to help white ink bond, but this pretreatment can cause uneven
absorption or halos around fine details.

3. Contrast and Optical Perception Even with the same print resolution,
a light edge on dark fabric looks rougher than a dark edge on light
fabric. Our eyes perceive high-contrast transitions as sharper,
exaggerating imperfections.

4. Transfer vs. Direct Print If using iron-on or sublimation transfer:

- Dark-shirt transfers use a solid opaque film with a white backing.
The film’s cut edges can appear rough.
- Light-shirt transfers embed the image directly in the fabric, so
edges appear smoother.

5. Possible Fixes

- Use a higher-resolution or vector edge for the inverted design.
- If printing direct-to-garment (DTG), reduce the white underbase
choke so it doesn’t extend beyond the color layer.
- Apply pretreatment evenly and sparingly.
- Trim closer on transfer prints or use a laser-cut mask.
- Slightly soften the edge in your artwork (0.2–0.5 px blur or halo in
shirt color).

In summary, inverted prints look rougher mainly due to the white
underbase, pretreatment, and visual contrast effects. Adjusting these
can significantly improve edge smoothness.

Just a few things to consider
John Wheeler

(I will post a process to clean up your image as well later on)

 

[thebestcpu]

To reiterate, the most effective solution is to use Text (vector) and shapes (vector) to recreate the logo from scratch. Keeping it in vector form when you enlarge or reduce before it is eventually rasterized will give you the cleanest edges.

Now, for making the existing logo a bit cleaner.

The PNG file format is nice as it has four channels, RGB and A for alpha or transparency.
Your starting image is shown below, along with the Layer stack.



The first step is to separate out the alpha/transparency channel to a Layer Mask. That is done with the command Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency. The overall image is the same yet you can see from the Layer thumbnails that they are separate.



To look at the RGB channel by itself, all you do is right-click on the Layer Mask and choose Disable Layer Mask. What I found unusual was all the strange patterns left in the RGB portion of the document.



To view just the Layer Mask or alpha channel of the image, simply use Option + click on the Layer Mask thumbnail (Alt + click on a PC). This is the inverse of the logo. What it means is that everywhere it is white, it is Opaque, and what will show is that portion of the RGB image. For the fully black area, those are 100 % transparent and what will show is what is in the Layer below ths Layer (e.g. white if the background is white)



Notably, the transparency primarily determines the logo, and there is no reason for the RGB channels to be anything but black.
So the first step is to click on the RGB or Image thumbnail in the Layer panel and fill the Image with all Black. This dramatically simplifies how to proceed and correct the image.



Now zooming in to the lower right corner "U" and edge circle, you can notice both the roughness of the edge circle and that the "U" is also quite rough and actually many portions that have no solid black in them and are quite transparent. The following steps will show how to clean this up.



Your right click on the Layer Mask and choose Select and Mask. You will get the panel in the second image below.





You have many options in this panel. In the view option near the top dropdown, I selected "On White." For the contrast sliders, I used 50%, and for the smoothness slider, I chose 50. As you can see, this firmed up the solid portion of the letter and also made the edges quite a bit smoother. There is a tradeoff as higher numbers of smoothness will make some of the sharp points on the text smoother as well. You adjust the sliders to achieve the desired result you want.



Returning to the overall image, the logo remains the same in this backed-up view, and now you can look for other issues that came with the Logo. Since we will be making changes to the Layer Mask only, and not the RGB image (which should remain all black), click again on Opt + click on the Layer Mask to open it for viewing and editing.

When starting with the original image, there was some image "noise" where the large containing circle was broken for the text. With the settings I had, I did not find any to correct, yet you may with a different set of settings with Select and Mask. If you do, for white slivers you would paint with black and if you and any black slivers, you would paint with white.



Hope this helps
John Wheeler