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🎨 ArtCheck

Instant art file screening for promotional products professionals.

Upload any vector, embroidery, or image file → get an instant preview, Pantone/CMYK color analysis, and production suitability check. No art department required.

🔗 Live app: www.artcheck.app — free to try, no signup.

Python Streamlit Claude Deployed


The Problem

In the promotional products industry, art departments lose hours every day to interruptions that aren't design work:

  • "Can you send me a screenshot of this file?"
  • "What Pantone is this logo?"
  • "Will this work for embroidery?"
  • "This file won't open."

Sales reps and CSRs have no self-service option, so every question stops an artist mid-project. After 20+ years in promo production, I built the tool I always wished existed.

What ArtCheck Does

Instant Previews

Upload .ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg, .cdr, or embroidery files (.dst, .pes, and more) and get a clean PNG preview in seconds — with smart background handling for the classic white-logo-on-white-page problem, and pan/zoom inspection.

Real Color Analysis (not pixel guessing)

ArtCheck parses color data from the file's internal structure before rasterization — PDF content streams, PostScript operators, separation colorspaces — so it reports what production actually needs:

  • Spot colors shown as true Pantone names
  • CMYK values (including K% for grayscale work)
  • RGB flagged with a warning, because RGB is a red flag in promo production

Raster Suitability Check

PNG/JPG uploads get a DPI analysis with usable print sizes at 300/200/150 DPI, a plain-English verdict (Production Ready / Marginal / Not Suitable), and exactly what to ask the customer for instead.

ArtBot — AI Production Assistant

A sidebar assistant with a senior-production-artist persona (powered by Claude). It sees your uploaded file's analysis and answers questions like "what does 'fonts not outlined' mean?" — including word-for-word scripts reps can send to customers.

Mockup Builder

Drop your trimmed transparent PNG onto any product photo for a quick customer-facing mockup — no design software or SAGE login required.

Under the Hood

For the technically curious — this is not a thin wrapper around a converter:

  • Rendering pipeline: PyMuPDF for PDF/AI (dynamic scaling, alpha-preserving), Ghostscript pngalpha for EPS, CairoSVG for SVG, pyembroidery for stitch files — each with fallbacks
  • Color extraction: multi-stage pipeline reading /Separation colorspace definitions, decompressed content-stream scn/k operators, and raw PANTONE string scanning; EPS goes through a Ghostscript→PDF→PyMuPDF conversion to reach parseable content streams
  • Production hardening: Dockerized on Railway, health-checked, WebSocket keepalive layered at three levels (Tornado server pings, client health pings, compression disabled) to survive proxy idle timeouts, memory-conscious lazy imports and resource caching for small-instance stability

Stack: Python · Streamlit · PyMuPDF · Ghostscript · CairoSVG · pyembroidery · Pillow · Anthropic Claude API · Docker · Railway

Supported Files

Type Formats
Vector .ai, .eps, .pdf, .svg, .cdr, .xcf
Embroidery .dst, .pes, .exp, .jef, .vp3, .xxx, .u01
Raster .png, .jpg, .gif, .tiff, .bmp, .webp

Privacy

Files are processed in memory and discarded immediately. Nothing is stored, and nobody can see your files but you.

Roadmap

  • Vector, embroidery, and raster preview generation
  • Spot color / Pantone detection with color-mode verdicts
  • Raster print-suitability analysis
  • AI production guidance with file awareness (ArtBot)
  • Mockup Builder
  • Decoration method pre-screening (embroidery/screen print/laser rules engine)
  • Batch processing
  • Shareable preview links
  • Team accounts & file history

Why ArtCheck Exists

After 20+ years in promotional products production, I was tired of watching talented artists burn out answering the same basic questions over and over. ArtCheck exists so creative teams can finally focus on real design work again.

Interested?

Currently onboarding early partners. For commercial licensing, API access, or to become an early partner: artchecksupport@gmail.com — or open an issue here.

License

Source-available for portfolio review and learning; commercial use requires a license. See LICENSE.md.