# Making a tropical Miami print with the Miami Coral Reef Map preset > a bright coral-and-aqua circle map for full-colour prints A circle-cropped city map in a sun-soaked reef palette: coral `#FF6F61` and tangerine `#FF9E4A` roads laid over teal `#1FB5A3` water and sandy cream `#FDF5E6` land, with soft aqua side streets. It loads on Miami at zoom 12.8 - close enough to read the grid of South Beach and the bay, wide enough to keep the coastline and the causeways in frame. This is deliberately a print-first design. Every layer is a flat colour field, so the magic lives in the palette - which means UV printing, sublimation, and plain full-colour printing reproduce it beautifully, while a laser engrave (monochrome by nature) would flatten all that coral and aqua into one burnt tone. Keep it in colour. ## What you need ### UV printing - Flatbed UV printer or a print service that accepts a high-res PNG - White or clear [acrylic](https://yxecreations.com/pages/acrylic-sheets), light wood panels, or coated metal/hardboard blanks - White ink for an underbase if you print on clear acrylic, so the coral and teal stay saturated ### Sublimation - Sublimation printer + paper, heat press, heat tape, lint roller - Poly-coated blanks: hardboard rounds, aluminium discs, ceramic tiles, or a poly tote/towel for the same shoreline on fabric ### Full-colour print - The exported high-res PNG (4096 px) - An inkjet/giclée print on heavyweight matte paper or canvas, ready to frame ## Step 1 - Start from the preset Open [the Miami Coral Reef Map preset](/map-designer?preset=miami-coral-map). It loads Miami at zoom 12.8 inside a circle. The composition rule for this palette: **let the teal water do the work** - frame so the bay, the ocean, and the causeways carve a bold shape through the cream land. An all-land crop wastes the best colour in the set. Search any warm coastal city - Key West, San Juan, Cancún, Honolulu - and pan until water fills a good third of the disc. Zoom in a notch (13–13.5) for a tight neighbourhood, out a notch (12) to capture the whole bay shape. ## Step 2 - Tune the layers One Solid layer group, **Coral city** - every feature is a filled colour field (Solid mode), which is exactly what print wants: - `land` - `#FDF5E6` sandy cream, the base everything sits on. - `water` - `#1FB5A3` teal, the hero fill. This is what makes the design read as Miami at a glance. - `landusePark` - `#BDE0D2` pale seafoam green for parks and golf courses. - `roadsMotorway` - coral `#FF6F61`, width 5. The boldest line: causeways and expressways. - `roadsPrimary` - tangerine `#FF9E4A`, width 3. - `roadsSecondary` - `#66D2CE` mid-teal, width 2. - `roadsStreet` - `#9AE3DE` soft aqua, width 1 - the texture layer. On a small print these fine aqua streets nearly melt into the cream; bump width to 1.5 or darken to `#66D2CE` if you want the grid to survive. The whole palette is warm and high-key, so contrast between the coral roads and the cream land is what sells it. If the roads look washed out on your proof, nudge the motorway/primary tiers a shade deeper rather than touching the water. ## Step 3 - Export - **UV / sublimation / print:** export the high-res PNG (4096 px) with the **Background toggle ON** - the cream land is part of the design, you almost always want it printed. The one exception: printing onto a natural sand-coloured blank where the substrate can play the land - then toggle Background off for a transparent PNG. - Keep the **circle** export shape - it's the postcard-perfect framing for this palette and reads great as a coaster, a disc, or a framed round print. - Enable **small-polygon cleanup** - coastal OSM data is full of sliver islands and sandbar fragments that print as specks. - Add a **Hanger hole** in the export modal only if you're making an acrylic ornament or disc to hang; for flat prints and coasters, leave it off. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV printing 1. Export the 4096 px PNG with background on. 2. Size it in your RIP to the panel - the flat colour fields hold up large, so a 200–300 mm framed disc looks fantastic. 3. On clear [acrylic](https://yxecreations.com/pages/acrylic-sheets), lay down a white underbase first so the teal and coral stay vivid; on white acrylic or hardboard print direct. 4. Register, print, and finish with a gloss varnish - here gloss helps, it makes the water look wet and the coral pop. ### Sublimation 1. Print the PNG **mirrored** at final size on sublimation paper. 2. Lint-roll the blank, pre-press it for 5–10 seconds to drive out moisture, then tape the print face-down. 3. Press at the settings recommended for your blank (poly-coated hardboard typically ~190–200 °C for 60 s); peel hot. 4. For a tote or towel of the same shoreline, the big teal water field carries the design even when the width-1 aqua streets soften into the weave. ### Full-colour paper / canvas print 1. Export the 4096 px PNG, background on. 2. Print on heavyweight matte paper or stretched canvas; the circle crop frames beautifully as a round print or matted inside a square frame. 3. For a giclée look, send the PNG to a print lab at 300 dpi for your final size. ## Make it yours - Cities where this palette sings: Key West, San Juan, Cancún, the Florida Keys, Honolulu, anywhere turquoise water meets pale sand. - Sunset-reef swap: water `#1FB5A3` stays, but recolour the roads to magenta `#FF5FA2` and gold `#FFC247` for a neon-tropical dusk version. - Coaster set: keep the circle shape and press a matching set of four discs of the same shoreline - one artwork, four blanks. - Press a beach-house gift bundle: a framed round print, a matching coaster set, and a poly tote, all the same Miami crop. - Drop a **route layer** in coral `#FF6F61` tracing a sailing line or a morning beach run across the bay. - Switch the export shape to **heart** over the resort or beach where a couple got engaged - same reef palette, instant anniversary keepsake. - For an acrylic disc to hang in a sunny window, add a **Hanger hole** and print on clear acrylic so the teal water glows when light passes through. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/miami-coral-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/miami-coral-map