07/29/2026
WHY DO MY IMAGES HAVE WEIRD EDGES ON THEM?
Especially with AI-generated artwork—especially when they're creating artwork for DTF printing, laser engraving, screen printing, or transparent PNGs.
The white or rough edges usually come from a combination of factors:
Anti-aliasing
AI models naturally soften the edges of objects so they blend into the background.
When the background is removed, those semi-transparent pixels remain around the edge and appear as a white or gray halo.
Compressed transparency
Many AI-generated PNGs contain partially transparent pixels instead of a perfectly clean cutout.
Against a white background they look fine, but on a dark shirt or colored object the halo becomes obvious.
The image wasn't created as true vector artwork
AI image generators create raster images (pixels), not vectors.
A designer creating artwork in Illustrator can make mathematically perfect edges. AI is essentially painting pixels.
Upscaling artifacts
If an image is enlarged after generation, the edge pixels are interpolated, making them look fuzzy.
Background removal
Automatic background removal often leaves remnants of the original background around the subject.
This is why we get paid the big bucks for custom artwork.
