The poster prints, but up close it is soft, blocky or fuzzy. On screen it looked fine.
Why it happens
Tiled printing takes one image and spreads it over a lot of paper. A photo that is sharp at 15 cm on a phone screen has the same number of pixels when it is a metre wide — they are just much bigger. Past a certain point you see the pixels.
Nothing downstream can add detail that was never captured. Not the export resolution, not the paper size, not the printer. This is the single most important thing on this page, and it is why the fixes below are in the order they are.
Fix 1 — start from a better source file
Check this before touching any setting.
- Use the original file. Images sent through chat apps, social feeds or email are recompressed and downscaled, often heavily. Get the original off the camera, the download or the designer.
- Use vector where the artwork is vector. An SVG or a PDF of a logo, diagram, pattern or type is resolution-independent — it is as sharp at three metres as at three centimetres, and it costs nothing. See adding images, PDFs and SVGs.
- Rough guide: for a poster viewed from a couple of metres, aim for roughly 100 pixels per printed inch. For something read close up, 200 to 300. A 1-metre-wide poster at the lower figure wants about 4,000 pixels across.
- The app's own thresholds: it treats 160 pixels per printed inch and above as fully sharp, and warns you below about 80.
Docuslice tells you when the image you placed is too small for the size you are printing:
Low Resolution Image — This image may appear blurry when printed. Enhance it to improve the print quality.
The warning is based on the total paper area your poster is tiled across, so it accounts for how big you are actually printing. Imported PDF pages never trigger it — they are vector and already sharp at any size.
Fix 2 — raise the export resolution
If your source is good, the export can still be the bottleneck. Standard is 160 DPI; High is 300 and Max is 600, both on the paid plans.
Use High for anything read up close, and Max for line art and fine type. See export resolution.
This helps only when the source can supply the detail. Raising DPI on a small image produces a large file of the same soft picture.
Fix 3 — export as vector PDF
If your poster is mostly text, SVG art or imported PDF pages, a vector PDF export removes the resolution question entirely for that content: it is emitted as vector instructions and the printer renders it at its own resolution. Edges stay perfectly crisp at any size. Pro feature.
Only text looking soft? That is exactly the case vector export solves.
Fix 4 — AI enhancement
When the source is all you have and it is too small, the AI upscaler reconstructs plausible detail on your device — nothing is uploaded. Use Max (High Quality) for the version you will print.
It is a reconstruction, not a recovery. Look at the result before printing: over-smoothed skin or mangled small text means revert to the original and accept a softer print, or find a better file.
Fix 5 — check the print settings
Two printer-side causes look like a resolution problem:
- Draft or eco mode halves the ink and the detail. Set the print quality to normal or best.
- Scaling other than 100% resamples every sheet. Set 100% / Actual Size — see print settings that matter.
Deciding in order
- Is there a bigger version of the file? Use it.
- Is the artwork vector? Import it as SVG or PDF and export as vector PDF.
- Is the export at Standard? Raise it to High or Max.
- Still short of pixels? Enhance with AI.
- Still soft on paper but crisp on screen? It is the printer's quality setting or the scaling.