Preparing your photos to print on fabric for a quilt

You can print your own personalized fabric through a variety of companies or use an inkjet printer at home. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of preparing your photos to be printed on fabric. These instructions can also be used to prepare your photo for printing using an inkjet printer. I want to print photos for textural quilting or embroidery in an art quilt. This is part of a series of quilts that I’ve been working on for the past year.

Types of image files

The two types of image files that I work with are vector and raster. Images in vector files are made of points, lines, and polygons.  The image is created by explicitly describing each polygon, line, and point. Vector files are scalable. Photos are raster files. This means that the image is composed of hundreds and hundreds of tiny dots or pixels. The number of pixels determines how large (or small) a raster image can be displayed on a screen or in print.  The format of a photo is usually a jpeg.  If you are working in Windows, you can identify the type of the file by switching to the “details” view.  (See the YouTube video below).

Determine the printed size of the photo

You want to print your photo on fabric for a quilt. You will need to determine what size your photo can be printed.  The printed size is based on the number of pixels. The first image (the rose) was taken with a Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera. With this camera, I used the the largest possible image size of 6016 x 4000 pixels (a 3:2 ratio image). In comparison, I took a photo of my dog (Shelby!) on my cell phone. My cell phone had an image size of 2992 x 2992 (a 1:1 ratio image).  (Photos displayed below have been resized for the internet.)

Let’s calculate the size of the printed photo.  Photos are usually printed at 300 dots per inch (dpi), but the nature of fabric means that we can print at a lower dpi. For the printing service that I have used, the minimum possible dpi for printing onto fabric is 150 dpi. I choose to print at 150 dpi to maximize the size of the image.

The rose image is 6016 x 4000 pixels. The first measurement is the width and the second is the length.

To determine the size of the print at 150 dpi, we divide each dimension by 150.  The rose image will print at 40.10 inches by 26.66 inches since 6016/150 = 40.10 and 4000/150 = 26.66. If we decide to print the image at 300 dpi, the printed image will be 20.10 x 13.33 inches. The printed photo can be printed on a fat quarter (22 x 18) or yardage. If we want the length of the image to be about 16 inches, we would need to print at 235 dpi and the width would be about 25.5 inches. Since 25.5 is greater than 22 inches, part of the image would be missing from the print if I printed on a fat quarter.

Consider the photo of Shelby. This image is square (1:1) and if printed at 150 dpi, I would obtain a 20 inch by 20 inch print.  The size of this photo would be a good choice for printing on a fat quarter, although about 2 inches would be chopped from the print.

Basic Photo Editor on Windows

In the linked tutorial posted on YouTube, I used the Microsoft Photos editor to make some basic edits. I check the number of pixels in the image, crop to the desired portion of the image (making a better fit for a fat quarter), apply a filter, and demonstrate how to resize the number of pixels. Cropping will not affect the number of pixels in a fixed area of the image, but the resize command will. If you are happy with the overall dimensions and color of your photo, you can now upload it to your favorite fabric printer.

Artistic effects editing

I use a free program called GIMP (gimp.org) to do additional editing on my photos. This photo editing software allows me to insert text and do some artistic effects on my images.  I use the artistic filters to create an image that is better for textural quilting and embroidery. For example, I can change the image to sepia and affect the number of colors in the photo. I can also use this program to combine several photos into a single file. Uploading a multiple photos in a single file means that the photos can be printed on the same fat quarter. This will make using a fabric printing service more economical. Check my YouTube video below to see how GIMP works.

The Next Step

Try this out yourself! If you don’t want to use a fabric printing service, you can print using fabric squares designed for inkjet printers.  I’ve also got a selection of photos prepared for printing on Spoonflower.
Later this summer, I’ll discuss textural quilting of my Yellow Flowers in a blog and video.

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