How do I prepare a fabric design for printing?

Meggiecat wrote the other day to ask the most obvious question about printing fabric on Spoonflower, which is "what do we need to do to prepare designs?"

I've delayed my response in the hope of being able to offer a bit more technical detail, but in the absence of a perfect response I'd like to go ahead and post a few suggestions. Please forgive me if I end up needing to revise any of this [likely].

File Resolution:
240 dpi is a minimum resolution for the design you wish to repeat in a pattern. If you want to be able to scale it up after you upload it, the image will need to be at least twice that.

Image Size:
You can take an image of any size (240 dpi or greater) and repeat it to create a pattern. Alternately, you could create the pattern repeat on your own computer and then upload a large file equal in size to the amount of fabric you wish to order. For example, the fabric we will be using is 44" wide (112 cm), so if you wanted to order a yard you could create an image that is 44" x 36" (or close to that). We have not yet determined if we will need to impose a size limit for files.

Fabric Size:
Once Spoonflower goes live you will be able to order a swatch (8"x8"), a fat quarter (18"x22") or any multiple of a linear yard. During portions of the beta period we may limit these options temporarily. We will always recommend that you order a swatch of your design before ordering a larger quantity. That will give you a chance to examine the colors firsthand to make sure they printed as intended.

Creating Repeats:
When you upload a design to your Spoonflower gallery, you will be able to create a pattern by tiling the image. In order for the pattern not to appear to be composed of a lot of individual tiles, the design you upload will need to be composed so that the left side of the design 'joins' to the right side, and the top of the design 'joins' to the bottom. If you have a textile design program or Photoshop expertise, you can probably do this pretty easily. For the rest of us, however, we plan to post tutorials to help you through the process of creating patterns on your own.

File Types / Color Profile:
[This is where I may have to revise my comments later, so please forgive me in advance.] You will want to set up your files in RGB mode with 8 Bits/Channel (rather than 16), and to save (and upload) them as .tiff or .eps files with flattened layers. Do not compress the images. Our system may allow you to upload JPGs, but they won't provide the best output.

Comments

[meggiecat]

This is very helpful. Next question...
My idea is for a cut and sew handbag. The color and print would only be inside the cut lines and there will be lots of empty space. Will you be charging by print time and ink used?
For instance, the on demand laser cutter Ponoko charges by time on the laser, more cuts, higher charge. I would think that more ink, higher charge would be logical.