Sticker Tutorial
CatPrint offers kiss-cut stickers and labels in satin, vinyl, and holographic paper stocks! Follow our tutorial below to learn how to create your custom stickers easily. To learn more about our stickers and labels, and to see some examples, check out our stickers page.
Learn More About Our StickersHow To Order
Please email your order to support@catprint.com with your files and order specifications.
File Setup
You will need to provide 3 files:
File #1: This should be a file with both your artwork & die line.
File #2: This should be a file with your artwork only.
File #3: This should be a file with your die line only.
Step 1: Plan How Your Sticker Should Look Printed
Your first step in setting up your sticker files is determining how you want them to look when they are finished. This is the desired result for our example to the right.
This will be a kiss-cut design that is cut out around the chibi character using the full-bleed method so that there is no added white space around the design.
For more information about full-bleed versus no-bleed, please visit our bleed options page.
Step 2: Create Your Dieline
Your dieline is the area of the design that you want "punched out".
In Photoshop, you can use the Magic Wand to select any white pixels around your illustration, and then go to the toolbar at the top and choose "Select -> Inverse". This will ensure that you don't miss any pixels and everything gets filled in properly.
Select the pixel area of your design that you want to be used as a sticker, and then fill that area in with black.
Step 3: Add Bleed
Return to your original illustration.
To ensure that your illustration does not have any unintended white outlines from our natural shifting process, you will need to add bleed to your original illustration.
• If your illustration does not have lineart, you will need to color in and extend your artwork manually by painting around it.
• If your illustration does have lineart, you will need to add stroke to your design or illustration. You can do that by following the guide below for options in Photoshop or Illustrator.
How to Properly Add Stroke in Photoshop or Illustrator to Your Sticker Files
Adding stroke helps to prevent unwanted white gaps caused by the natural shifting process when creating kiss-cut stickers.
In Photoshop
In Adobe Photoshop, in the Layers Panel click on the thumbnail square on the layer that you would like to add stroke to. A window like the one featured below should pop up.
Select the "Stroke" option on the left-hand side of the toolbar. Make sure that the color you are using to add stroke is black (#000000). The recommended size of the stroke is 3px with the stroke on the Outside.
Tip: We highly recommend selecting a free hard-copy proof when you order your prints to see the output and determine if any adjustments need to be made.
In Illustrator
In Adobe Illustrator, make sure that the objects you would like to add stroke to are selected.
In the toolbar at the top, select "Object" and go down to "Path" (towards the bottom of the toolbar). Hover over "Path" and another menu should appear. From there, click on "Offset Path".
A window like the one shown here should appear.
At this point, you will want to add in a stroke of 0.5pt, as shown. For larger prints, such as 12" x 18" or 11" x 17", you may want to increase the size to 0.75pt to ensure that the stroke is thick enough.
Step 4: Send In Your Files
At this point you're all set! Be sure to send in your files to support@catprint.com
What happens next is our stickers will go through our software and combine your files to create a kiss-cut press. It looks something like this, where your dieline (seen in blue) is overlayed on-top of your bleed file to create your stickers. Pretty neat, huh?
